Paramount+ defied tough competition among streamers to gain the most new subscribers in the first three months of the year, as more homes access more than one premium streaming TV service.
- Disney+ and NOW see numbers fall
- Netflix and Prime Video see tiny increases
- Discovery+ falls flat in time period that saw it lose Eurosport.
The latest Barb Establishment Survey confirms a tough quarter for premium streaming TV services in the UK.
Barb, which began life as the organisation responsible for measuring ratings, says Paramount+ saw the biggest subscriber gains. It’s credited drama Yellowstone as being the potential driver of new subscriptions.
The number of UK homes accessing a subscription video on-demand (SVoD) service shows little growth. Barb’s research however reveals homes that do use SVoDs are more likely to be subscribing to more than one service at the same time. It’s households with multiple subscriptions that are driving growth.
Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight at Barb, explained:
“20.1 million UK homes accessed at least one pure-play VoD service in Q1 2025, showing continued stability in the market. The number of homes with two or more services grew for the first time since Q2 2024, reaching a new high watermark of almost 14.1 million homes. Paramount+ was the service with the largest growth in the absolute number of homes, adding 430k over the quarter to stand +16 per cent on Q4 2024 and +19 per cent on Q1 2024. The latest series of 1923 was a notable content release for the service in Q1, but another factor may be the release of Yellowstone series 1-4 on Netflix at the end of January. During Q1, series five of Yellowstone accounts for five of the top ten most-viewed programmes on Paramount+ that were not new releases. Potentially those viewing on Netflix went on to join Paramount+ to find out what happens at the end of the series.”
Winners and losers: Subscription streaming services (UK) Q1 2025
Discovery+ is flat – this follows a quarter where it made a number of changes to its offer including downgrading some customers and cancelling others. HBO Max will replace Discovery+ by April 2026.
Netflix and Prime Video show small gains compared to Q4 2024. Compared over a longer period (see the Q3 v Q4 data here), they’re back to where they were last summer.
| Service | Q1 2025 households subscribing (in millions) | Q4 2024 households subscribing (in millions) | Change Q4 2024 to Q1 2025 (households in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix | 17.4 (59.2% of all homes) | 17.1 (58.2% ) | 🔼 0.3 |
| Prime Video | 13.4 (45.7% of all homes) | 13.3 (45.5%) | 🔼 0.1 |
| Disney+ | 7.3 (24.8% of all homes) | 7.6 (26% of all homes) | 🔻 0.3 |
| Apple TV+ | 2.7 (9.1% of all homes) | 2.6 (8.9% of all homes) | 🔼 0.1 |
| Paramount+ | 3.1 (10.5% of all homes*) | 2.7 (9.1% of all homes) | 🔼 0.4 |
| Discovery+ | 3.1 (10.6% of all homes**) | 3.1 (10.7% of all homes***) | FLAT |
| NOW | 1.8 (6.2% of all homes) | 2 (6.7% of all homes) | 🔻 0.2 |
Data: Barb Establishment Survey – Q1 2025
*/**/*** RXTV comment about the data: Due to Barb’s household figures being rounded to the first figure after the decimal, apparent contradictions appear. For example, this data show three instances where a streamer reaches 3.1 million households, but shows different household percentages of between 10.5-10.7% next to the figure. The 3.1 million figure attributed to Discovery+ in Q4 2024 (10.7%) is rounded down more than the Paramount+ figure for Q1 (10.6%) 2025.
RXTV comment: It’s an analysis that Barb hasn’t included itself – but the data also confirms the current divide between the streaming haves and have nots continues. Barb’s figures shows 20.1 million UK homes accessed at least one subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) service in the first three months of the year. Logically, that confirms around a third of UK homes don’t have a SVoD subscription. And that’s a figure that hasn’t shifted much recently.
By: Marc Thornham | Image: Paramount