New data from the audience research organisation Barb shows unmatched viewing – shows watched 28 days after initial broadcast and non-broadcast viewing including gaming – continues to grow.
Figures within The SVOD Report reveal unmatched viewing accounted for 16 per cent of all TV viewing in 2016 and continues to rise. The figure peaked at 20 per cent in the second quarter of 2017.
While Barb is unable to pinpoint actual shows without the permission of the service providers it can break the figures down. 23 per cent is via games consoles, the vast majority of which can be assumed to be gaming. Other sources include Virgin set-tops (9 per cent), YouView (6 per cent) and Freeview (5 per cent), as well as internet set-boxes (8 per cent) which includes Apple TV. Significantly, 20 per cent comes from TV sets themselves.
Growth across the main SVOD services remains consistent with the number of households taking at least one service peaking at 24 per cent (9.5 million homes). Amazon Prime Video that had seen high growth at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017 has now plateaued against the two other main services.
Netflix remains the dominant SVOD player in the UK, but grew at the slowest rate of the three main services. It still added the most subscribers in the year, rising by 1.4 million to a total of 7.5 million subscribers. Now TV experienced the largest annual subscription growth of 70 per cent, adding 0.6 million subscribers to reach a subscription base of 1.4 million households by Q3 2017.
