New data from Barb, the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch, has revealed that access to a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service decreased from Q3 2023 to Q4 2023.
The data from Barb’s Establishment Survey revealed that 18.8m UK homes (65.4%) had access to SVOD in Q4 2023, down from 19.3m (67.3%) in Q3 2023.
Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight at Barb said the fall could be attributed to consumer habits during the festive period.
‘The latest data from our Establishment Survey show access to pure-play VOD services dropped slightly in Q4 last year. The proportion of homes with two or more services also slipped back compared to Q3, dipping from 13.3m (46.4%) to 12.8m (44.7%) in Q4,’ he said. ‘As they continue to battle it out in the UK viewing ecosystem, the festive period proved a competitive time. Families may have prioritised festive spending at a time when the broadcaster offering is strong. And mostly free.’
For the first time, Barb has shared the Netflix advertising tier estimate which is 1.45m (5.1% of homes). Overall, 16.3m UK homes (56.7%) had access to Netflix in Q4 2023, down from 16.7m (58.2%) in Q3.
12.4m UK homes (43.1%) had access to Amazon Prime Video in Q4 2023, down from fractionally under 13m (45.3%) in Q3, while 7.3m UK homes (25.6%) had access to Disney+ down from 7.6m (26.7%).
1.98m UK homes (6.9%) had access to Apple TV+ in Q4, also down from 2.2m (7.8%) in Q3.1.99m (6.9%) had access to Paramount+, a small difference compared to 1.93m (6.7%), and1.82m UK homes (6.4%) had access to NOW in Q4, a small drop from 1.9m (6.5%) in Q3.
SVOD services with a household penetration of more than 5% are reported.
Featured image: Provided by Barb
