Almost exactly a month into the official UK Covid-19 lockdown period, research from comparison and switching service Uswitch.com has revealed a massive upsurge in streamed TV and films usage with nearly half (47%) watching a higher proportion of such services and most people watching double the amount they usually did.
The study surveyed a sample of 2,004 UK adults from 17–19 March 2020 with results weighted to reflect a nationally representative criteria. Prior to lockdown, adults watched an average of six hours of online TV and films per week, while parents say their children usually viewed five hours a week. Now says Uswitch.com stay-at-home consumers are watching 170 million extra hours of online TV content a week. In addition, consumers said they and their children will stream an extra seven hours of TV and films a week in the coming months.
In recent months the UK has seen its streaming options boosted considerably with the arrival of Apple TV+ in November 2019 and Disney+ in March 2020 complementing the well-established Netflix, Amazon Prime and NOW TV. Yet despite the popularity of such commercial services, the BBC iPlayer is currently the most popular service in the UK, watched by half (51%) of people, closely followed by Netflix with 49% of consumers. However, the BBC and ITV’s much touted BritBox subscription video-on-demand service has struggled to date attracting just 1% of UK streamers to date.
The popularity of streaming looks set to persist and bring huge business benefits for such players with the study finding that almost of tenth of streamers in the UK (9.2%) plan to pay for additional streaming services. UK streaming users currently spend £15.30 a month on subscriptions, up from £12.50 in October 2019. This said the Uswitch.com research means that UK households are spending an extra £44 million a month on streaming services compared to October.
In recent months the UK has seen its streaming options boosted considerably with the arrival of Apple TV+ in November 2019 and Disney+ in March 2020 complementing the well-established Netflix, Amazon Prime and NOW TV. Yet despite the popularity of such commercial services, the BBC iPlayer is currently the most popular service in the UK, watched by half (51%) of people, closely followed by Netflix with 49% of consumers. However, the BBC and ITV’s much touted BritBox subscription video-on-demand service has struggled to date attracting just 1% of UK streamers to date.
The popularity of streaming looks set to persist and bring huge business benefits for such players with the study finding that almost of tenth of streamers in the UK (9.2%) plan to pay for additional streaming services. UK streaming users currently spend £15.30 a month on subscriptions, up from £12.50 in October 2019. This said the Uswitch.com research means that UK households are spending an extra £44 million a month on streaming services compared to October.
