According to Barb’s Establishment Survey, 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+ joined 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.
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.”
The company shared that Netflix had the largest penetration in UK homes, with 16.7m (58%) having had access to it in Q1 2024 up from 16.3m (59%) in Q4. The streamer is followed by Amazon Prime Video, which reached 13m UK homes (45.3%) in Q1 up from 12.4m (43.1%) in Q4 2023.
Moreover, 7.5m UK houses (26.1%) had access to Disney+ up from 7.3m (25.6%); 2.38m (8.3%) had access to Apple TV+ up from 1.98m (6.9%), a new high watermark for the service since Barb reporting began in Q3 2020; 2.6m (9.1%) had access to Paramount+ in Q1 up from 1.99m (6.9%) in Q4; 3.1m (10.9%) had access to Discovery+ in Q1; and 1.82m UK homes (6.3%) had access to NOW in Q1, flat compared to Q4.
Whelpdale added: “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+.”