Sneak Preview: The Retention Game: Managing Subscriber Acquisition and Churn
On Thursday, Aug. 13, Chris Pfaff, CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech Media LLC, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel “The Retention Game: Managing Subscriber Acquisition and Churn.” Join this closing panel for a candid discussion on which subscriber acquisition and retention strategies work in 2026 and which ones fail to move the needle, from bundling strategies and free-trial optimization to targeted win-back campaigns and the early behavioral signals that predict churn before it happens. Learn how leading streaming platforms are drawing on data science insights and leveraging personalization to turn one-show drop-ins into long-term, loyal subscribers.
Confirmed panelists include:
Register now for Streaming Media Connect!
Chris Pfaff was the first to use IRC for an interactive corporate webcast; he produced one of the first DVDs, the first HD animated logo, and some of the first mobile short films; he led numerous multipoint broadband events; and he produced the first Twitter Wall. His company, Chris Pfaff Tech Media, has provided strategy and marketing services for leading technology service providers, technology firms, and new media companies worldwide since 2002. Pfaff was also one of the founders of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) New Media Council East and a founder of the New York chapter of the VR/AR Association.
“The streaming bundle is showing remarkable effectiveness in reducing churn,” Pfaff says. “In an age of media consolidation, and the post-Peak TV subscription fatigue, the bundle has blunted the growing monthly churn rate. This has brought strange bedfellows together—bitter rivals—that are showing great success in maintaining high retention rates. We see that Disney+/Hulu/Max achieved a resounding 80% retention rate after its initial three months. U.S. households are increasingly bundling streaming with ISP deals, which satisfies value insulation, and multiple content satisfactions. Streamers are constantly fighting content ‘dry spells,’ and bundles appear to be the only strategy that successfully locks so-called nomadic viewers into long-term billing cycles.”
David Guinan has more than 25 years of experience in media and sports entertainment, specializing in direct-to-consumer strategy, digital transformation, and streaming sports product development. He’s consulted for Major League Table Tennis and LIV Golf and advised the English Premier League and Chelsea Football Club on their U.S. direct-to-consumer strategy. Guinan served as chief digital officer for The Cowboy Channel, where he created and scaled the Cowboy Channel+ OTT platform. He is currently president of Horse & Country.
Guinan said of how sports streamers can retain viewers (at Streaming Media 2025): “It needs to be good live as an actual live event. It needs to be good on a couch. And it also needs to be good on your phone. All tier one sports do this very, very effectively.”
Nicole Fencel is director of premium subscriptions at Roku, where she architected the evolution of the business from its early stages into an international digital ecosystem. In her role, she oversees strategic product vision and commercial execution, driving multiyear roadmaps that scale subscriber growth and platform monetization. Fencel specializes in driving critical business outcomes for Roku and its partners, including ARPU optimization, international market entry, and long-term retention frameworks.
“With so much fragmentation and an overwhelm of choice in streaming, winning the subscriber is only half the battle. Keeping those subscribers engaged with your service is the real indicator of long-term success,” Fencel says. “I’m looking forward to sharing how platforms like Roku have a unique ability to help our partners do just that through greater personalization and discovery touch points at every step of the viewer’s streaming journey.”
Steven Chang is head of product marketing at Philo, where he leads product marketing strategy and serves as a key marketing partner to product and business teams. With experience spanning streaming platforms, gaming, and digital media at companies including Roku, Amazon Studios, Yahoo, and Disney, Chang specializes in customer intelligence, GTM strategy, and product-led growth initiatives that drive engagement and revenue.
“For Philo, the key to mitigating churn is to identify where a subscriber sits in their user journey,” Chang explains. “We segment subscribers on two dimensions: what they watch and how they watch. What they watch is stable and drives recommendations. How they watch—and pay—shifts seasonally. For example, when a favorite show is out of season, we lead with our FAST offering. When it returns, our subscribers often shift naturally back to paid. Ideally for us, we never have to make a true win-back offer, because our customers never leave the ecosystem.”
Deepali Narsiker is a media and streaming growth executive who has helped scale streaming platforms across EMEA and APAC. She played a pivotal role in launching Hooq, one of Southeast Asia’s first premium OTT services. She helps streaming platforms navigate market complexities while driving subscriber acquisition, reducing churn, and delivering measurable commercial growth. Narsiker also advises platforms on applying AI to improve content discovery, subscriber engagement, and retention, translating emerging technology into tangible business outcomes. She heads the Allyship Pillar at Women in Streaming Media.
“Acquisition and churn are two ends of the same problem—you spend heavily to bring subscribers in and then lose them because they can’t find enough value. That gap is a discovery problem and fundamentally, a metadata problem,” Narsiker says. “Having built content and metadata operations from the ground up, I’m looking forward to discussing why the platforms that win aren’t the ones that spend most on acquisition or win-back, but the ones that describe their catalogue well enough to turn a new sign-up into a long-term commitment.”
Register now for Streaming Media Connect!
Related Articles
On Tuesday, August 11, Streaming Media will launch 20th Streaming Media Connect virtual event with an exclusive fireside chat with NASA's GM & Head of NASA+ Rebecca Sirmons, back by popular demand! Each morning of the 3-day event will kick off at 11am ET/8am PT with back-to-back keynote fireside chats featuring a varied array of industry luminaries, including TwelveLabs' Simon Lecointe, Google's Shobana Radhakrishnan, Wowza's Krish Kumar, TiVo's Briana Larsen, and Bally's Media's Jon Lin.
04 Aug 2026
As audiences move fluidly across streaming video, gaming, music, social platforms, and live experiences, growth will depend on experiences that are easier to access, more relevant and built to adapt.
27 Jul 2026
On August 12, panelists from AWS, Paramount, Al Jazeera, and TAG Video Systems will join the Streaming Media Connect panel "Optimizing Live Streaming QoS and QoE." From measuring and improving rebuffering, startup time, and bitrate quality to tying QoE metrics directly to retention, this panel focuses on quantifiable streaming metrics that matter, as well as harder-to-measure viewer satisfaction signals that define true QoS (quality of service) and QoE (quality of experience). Come for the real-world war stories from high-stakes live events, where every hiccup costs viewers and revenue, and stay for the real-time QoS/QoE Q&A with live streaming's best and brightest.
24 Jul 2026
On Thursday, Aug. 13, Dataxis Principal Analyst Ophélie Boucaud will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "Find It FAST: Leveraging AI in CTV Discovery," with panelists from TiVo, Gracenote, Hub, and Future Today. AI is transforming how viewers find content and the never-ending struggle for visibility in a saturated content ecosystem. This panel unpacks the recommendation engine architectures and real-time personalization pipelines that top streaming platforms and EPGs are using to surface the right content for the right user at the right moment and the increasing shift toward agent-assisted, conversational search.
24 Jul 2026
On Thursday, Aug. 13, LinkedIn's Chris Packard, LiveX's Corey Behnke, and MemeHouse's Zylo Hefferan will join the SVTA's Bhavesh Upadhyaya for a Streaming Media Connect panel that examines how top streaming teams prepare for, monitor, and recover from tentpole live events like sports and concerts. The discussion will range from pre-event capacity planning, load testing, and failover strategies to establishing best practices for managing traffic spikes when the stakes are highest.
14 Jul 2026
For streaming services, bundling is increasingly a retention tool designed to carry subscribers through the post-holiday rethink, when perceived value matters more than promotional hype.
13 Jan 2026
Roku Channel Senior Manager Nicole Fencel dicusses Roku's strategies for heightening the discovery of niche OTT platforms in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2021.
22 Sep 2021