More than 350,000 households ditched subscriptions to the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ last quarter, according to regulator Ofcom’s annual Media Nations UK report, which showed a record year for British high-end TV production.
The 19.2M figure is still very high, but the proportion of UK households who subscribed to an SVoD declined by 1pp, to 67%. This was due to the fact that the well-off U.S. streamers struggle to compete in strong markets and rethink strategies.
In 2021, the slowdown in take-up was evident. However, it accelerated last quarter with approximately 4% of Prime Video subscriptions cancelled and Disney+ subscriptions cut off and around 2% cutting off Netflix.
However, the number of households now accessing all three rose to one-fifth of the entire population, which costs a house £300 ($362) per year.
Netflix is still the most popular SVoD with 60% of households subscribing, ahead of Prime Video (46%), and Disney+ (23%), which saw an impressive growth stall last quarter. While newer competitors like Discovery+ (8%)and Apple TV+ (6%) remain far behind, Q2 saw Paramount+ launch as the competition heats up.
A little over three quarters of respondents said that they would consider resubscribing. “reflecting the flexibility of the SVoD consumer proposition,”Customers added to the Ofcom “picking up and dropping subs depending on [specific shows] or change in needs or circumstances.”
While the annual 108-page report brought bad news for the UK’s public broadcasters – with average viewing falling by 9% and a generational divide shown up as over-65s were seven times more likely to watch linear TV than young people – there was good news for the BBC in its battle against the streamers.
VoD service BBC iPlayer continues to be the most popular in the UK for watching films and shows. This is almost three-quarters of all UK viewers, surpassing Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video and Prime Video by a very short distance.
Television gains at the top
The good news was also for the high-end television sector. Since the introduction of the TV tax credit in 2013, a record number shows were filmed in the UK.
There were 211 high-end productions made in the UK in 2021, which doubled 2020’s pandemic-impacted 116 and was 50 ahead of the non-pandemic-impacted 2019’s 116 production. The number of streamer films also increased by 36.
“Some of the record increases over the past year can be attributed to productions delayed from 2020, but the five-year trend shows that high-end TV is still growing, and long-form productions increased even during the pandemic,”The report was also added.
Just over half of the 211 were shows from overseas such asGood OmensOutlander,More U.S.-based studios started moving production to the UK. The second season of Amazon’s Lord of the RingsEpic is set to begin production soon, which will add another boost to the sector’s success.