Latest ratings data covering the three months up to the end of 2024 show fewer homes had a Netflix subscription and more homes opting for cheaper ad-supported subscription options.
- Ratings organisation Barb releases data covering the peak viewing season around Christmas.
- Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount+ and Discovery+ see household reach fall.
- Many viewers switching to cheaper subscription tiers with adverts.
Barb, the organisation responsible for audience measurement and TV ratings, has released its latest quarterly Establishment Survey figures. And they confirm many subscription streaming services are struggling to grow. Meanwhile, more homes are switching to cheaper subscription tiers.
Netflix flat
No streaming service comes close to Netflix in turns of UK homes subscribing to the service. It still reaches 58.2% of all households, down from 59% in the third quarter of 2024 (July-September). But more Netflix subscribers are selecting the cheapest ad-supported tier. Barb estimates 4.7 million or 16% of UK homes now watch Netflix with ads. Netflix only launched its ad-supported tier in November 2022. In the absence of audited UK numbers from Netflix, Barb’s analysis suggests around 200,000 UK homes have taken action to cancel Netflix in the last three months of 2024.
Over a longer period, Netflix reached 56.7% of homes in Q3 2023, so despite the recent loss, the streaming giant is still seeing a tiny bit of growth.
Prime Video doesn’t quite deliver
Amazon’s Prime Video also saw a slight fall with 13.3% of homes having access to the service. That’s despite traditionally benefiting from the run up to Christmas, because of being included with Amazon Prime for deliveries of presents. It also normally attracts more subscribers due to its Christmas time coverage of live Premier League football. 87% homes with access to Prime Video accessed the ad-supported tier, i.e. only 13% paid extra to avoid adverts.
Unlike Netflix, Prime Video subscribers who previously had ad-free access were automatically migrated to the ad-supported tier last year. They had to proactively take action to opt-out of seeing ads.
Prime Video has been hovering around 13 million homes in Barb’s Establishment Survey for some time.
Winners and losers: Subscription streaming services (UK) Q4 2024
Only Disney+ and Apple TV+ saw subscriber numbers increasing, according to Barb analysis.
| Service | Q4 2024 households subscribing (in millions) | Q3 2024 households subscribing (in millions) | Change Q3 to Q4 2024 (households in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix | 17.1 (58.2% of all homes) | 17.3 (59%) | 🔻 0.2 |
| Prime Video | 13.3 (45.5% of all homes) | 13.4 (45.9%) | 🔻 0.1 |
| Disney+ | 7.6 (26% of all homes) | 7.5 (25.7%) | 🔼 0.1 |
| Apple TV+ | 2.6 (8.9% of all homes) | 2.5 (8.6%) | 🔼 0.1 |
| Paramount+ | 2.7 (9.1% of all homes) | 2.8 (9.4%) | 🔻 0.1 |
| Discovery+ | 3.1 (10.7% of all homes) | 3.2 (10.9%) | 🔻 0.1 |
| NOW | 2 (6.7% of all homes) | 2.1 (7%) | 🔻 0.1 |
Paramount+, Discovery+ and NOW all saw slight reductions in the number of homes reached by the services.
Looking at the figures over a longer period (comparing Q3/Q4 2024 with Q3/Q4 2023), Paramount+ and NOW have seen slight increases. Paramount+ was estimated to reach 1.99 million homes at the end of 2023. By the end of 2024, that was 2.7 million. NOW has been hovering between 1.82 million (Q4 2023) and 2.1 million (Q3 2024), before falling back at the end of the year.
What’s unique about these figures?
Most streaming services tend to give a global overview of their subscribers, which doesn’t tell the full picture in the UK. Netflix and Disney+ have both reported strong global subscription figures. But the analysis by Barb indicates that not much growth is occurring in the UK.
In lieu of the streaming companies providing detailed subscriber figures for the UK, Barb’s Establishment Survey fills in some of the blanks.
Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight at Barb said:
“The overall figures for Q4 2024 are largely flat compared to Q3.
“Looking at the three services with ad tiers, Amazon has the largest ad tier with 11.6m homes. With most Amazon homes on the ad tier this, this represented modest growth on Q3. But set against a modest decline in overall Amazon Prime video access, this would suggest newcomers to the service are taking the ad tier.
Meanwhile, the Netflix ad tier is now in almost 1m more homes than in Q3, while the Disney+ ad tier is now in 26% more homes than the last quarter. The majority of homes on these two services are still using the service without ads, so there is plenty of room for their ad tiers to grow.”
Barb says caution should be applied when comparing Barb’s sample-based numbers to audited numbers published by subscription streaming services (if these are made public at all). For example, uncertainties may occur if the survey respondent isn’t the person in the household who subscribes to a particular service, or when a service is provided in a package with other services.
By: Marc Thornham