Every week, we bring you the top stories and analyses from the global Subscription Economy.

BBC Eyes Plan To Make BBC Four A Global Subscription Service

Excerpt from an article by Jake Kanter on Deadline

The BBC has said it is considering transforming BBC Four into a global subscription service amid continued uncertainty about the television channel’s future in the UK.

In its 76-page annual plan published on Wednesday, the BBC revealed: “We are exploring potential commercial opportunities for BBC Four to become a new global subscription service that takes our strengths in specialist factual to the world stage.”

The British broadcaster offered no further detail, but it’s clear that it believes there could be value in adding the network to BBC Studios’ existing portfolio of international channels, including BBC Earth and BBC Brit. BBC Four is known for its experiments in slow TV and high-end history documentaries, such as Lucy Worsley’s Royal Photo Album.

For more, read the full piece on Deadline and learn how Zuora is helping media companies embark on the shift to subscription business models.

After a coronavirus boost, subscription startups are focusing on retention

Excerpt from an article by Anna Hensel on Modern Retail

Retention is a metric that all e-commerce startups are constantly striving to improve, but subscription startups especially so. The economics of a subscription model only work when a company isn’t constantly having to spend a ton of marketing money to acquire new customers, to replace the customers who decided to cancel their subscriptions.

While some customers don’t like the rigidness of subscription plans, coronavirus outbreak provides subscription startups the opportunity to prove their value: that they can make it easier for customers to get goods they need consistently on time.

Executives who spoke with Modern Retail said that it’s too early to tell if new subscribers are behaving any differently than ones they’ve acquired before the coronavirus. As the coronavirus outbreak continues, it presents a few additional challenges in their quest to keep churn as low as possible.

For more, read the full article on Modern Retail, learn how Zuora’s customers are fighting churn amid COVID-19, and check out our latest Subscription Impact report featuring business strategies for retention.

Strava is moving some free features behind a subscription

Excerpt from an article by Rachel England on Engadget

Strava, the social fitness network that tracks cycling and running, is putting some of its previously free features behind a subscription paywall.

From today, activity recording, device support and Strava’s social network element will be free to all users. Everything else, such as route planning, segment leaderboards, the training dashboard, advanced metrics and training logs will be available as part of a subscription — previous subscription options, such as packs and Summit, have been wiped. Get a free trial for 60 days, and then pay $5/£4 a month when you’re billed annually.

The company has reassured users that it will “always offer a version of Strava for free,” and while it intends to keep the free version high quality and useful, more of its new feature development will be for subscribers from now on.

For more, read the full piece on Engadget

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