Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
House Of Cards: a critical success for Netflix, but did it attract new subscribers?
House of Cards: a critical success for Netflix, but did it attract new subscribers? Photograph: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
House of Cards: a critical success for Netflix, but did it attract new subscribers? Photograph: David Giesbrecht/Netflix

Two-thirds of UK's Netflix and Amazon users don't watch their original shows

This article is more than 8 years old

More British online TV subscribers say they view films or US shows than exclusive programmes such as House of Cards or Orange is the New Black

Two-thirds of online TV subscribers in the UK say they don’t watch original shows such as House of Cards or Transparent that have cost their providers millions to commission.

The two biggest online TV services in the UK, Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Instant Video, have invested heavily in original programming in a bid to attract more subscribers. Amazon recently struck a £160m deal to create a new show with former Top Gear stars Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

Just 31% of people told Ofcom in April they used an online TV service to watch original programming, compared to 75% who said they used the service to watch films and almost half who said they watched US shows.

Ofcom said some of the respondents to the survey could have been unaware that they had watched programming commissioned by the services, despite being provided with prompts such as House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black during the survey.

The figures suggest that the majority of UK online TV subscribers are more concerned with back catalogues and foreign TV than exclusive content.

An earlier survey from the beginning of 2014 found that only 24% of Netflix subscribers and 15% of Amazon Prime subscribers said the reason they had signed up to the service was to watch original programming. However, the number of high-profile shows since launched or commissioned has grown, with Netflix airing Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul and superhero series Daredevil, and Amazon snatching the former Top Gear cast following Clarkson’s abrupt departure from the BBC.

Ofcom says Netflix had 4.3 million subscribers in Q1 2015, Amazon had 1.2 million and Sky’s on-demand service Now TV had just over 500,000. Online TV subscriptions in the UK were worth £317m in 2014.

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed