News & Views

Barb has released data from its Establishment Survey showing that 19.5m UK homes (67.9%) had access to a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service in Q1 2024, an increase from 18.8m UK homes (65.4%) in Q4 2023.

Discovery+ joins the tracker for the first time and Apple TV+ has reached a new high watermark for the service since Barb reporting began in Q3 2020.

For the second time, Barb has shared a Netflix advertising tier estimate which is 2.12m (7.4% of homes) up from 1.45m (5.1% of homes). These homes form part of the overall Netflix figure below and are not in addition to it.

• Netflix: 16.7m UK homes (58%) had access to Netflix in Q1 2024 up from 16.3m (59%) in Q4.
• Amazon Prime Video: 13m UK homes (45.3%) had access to Amazon Prime Video in Q1 up from 12.4m (43.1%) in Q4.
• Disney+: 7.5m UK homes (26.1%) had access to Disney+ in Q1 up from 7.3m (25.6%) in Q4.
• Apple TV+: 2.38m UK homes (8.3%) had access to Apple TV+ in Q1 up from 1.98m (6.9%) in Q4 – a new high watermark for the service since Barb reporting began in Q3 2020.
• Paramount+: 2.6m UK homes (9.1%) had access to Paramount+ in Q1 up from 1.99m (6.9%) in Q4. Some of this increase is due to a change in the Establishment Survey questionnaire (see quote below).
• Discovery+: 3.1m UK homes 10.9% had access to Discovery+ in Q1.
• NOW: 1.82m UK homes (6.3%) had access to NOW in Q1, flat compared to Q4.

Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight at Barb said:

“The streaming services made a strong start to 2024, with all services except Netflix and NOW recording year-on-year improvements in the proportion of UK homes with access. Overall, 19.5m UK homes had access to a streaming service in Q1 2024, a quarter-on-quarter increase but still slightly lower year-on-year (-0.5% points). The proportion of homes with two or more services also grew compared to Q4 2023, moving from 44.7% (12.8m) to 47.3% (13.6m) to be flat year-on-year in penetration terms.

Discovery+ joins the tracker for the first time this quarter which is exciting to see. A change in the Establishment Survey questionnaire is responsible for catapulting Discovery+ above the 5% threshold for inclusion on the tracker. This was done to better capture passive streaming service subscriptions. This would include subscriptions via Sky packages and other bundles that existing questions prior to Q1 2024 did not fully capture. This change is in part also responsible for the strong quarter-on-quarter growth we see from Paramount+.”

Barb’s viewing data shows how new titles and library programming combine to drive time spent with these streaming services.

Streaming services with a household penetration of more than 5% are reported. Caution should be applied when comparing Barb’s sample-based numbers to audited numbers published by the SVOD services. Respondent recall of access to these services is subject to some uncertainty – this could occur where the respondent is not the subscriber in the household, or the service is provided in a package with other services.