News & Views

Barb, the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch, has released data from its Establishment Survey showing that 20.7m UK homes (69.7%) had access to a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service in Q2 2026. This is fractionally down from 20.8m UK homes in Q1 2026.

The service-level subscriptions data are as follows:

• Netflix: 18.0m UK homes (60.4%) had access to Netflix in Q2 2026, down slightly from 18.1m in Q1 2026. In Q2 2026, 41% of Netflix homes were on its ad tier (an increase from 40% in the previous quarter): 7.3m UK homes (24.6%), up from 7.2m.
• Amazon Prime Video: 13.6m UK homes (45.9%) had access to Amazon Prime Video in Q2 2026, down slightly from 13.7m in Q1 2026. Due to a different approach to moving homes to its ad tier, in Q2 2026, 89% of Amazon Prime Video homes were on its ad tier, up slightly from the previous quarter: 12.1m UK homes (40.6%), up from 12.0m.
• Disney+: 8.9m UK homes (29.9%) had access to Disney+ in Q2 2026, up significantly from 7.8m in Q1 2026. In Q2 2026, 40% of Disney+ homes were on its ad tier (an increase from 37% in the previous quarter): 3.6m UK homes (12.0%), up from 2.8m.
• Discovery+: 3.7m UK homes (12.4%) had access to Discovery+ in Q2 2026, up from 3.5m in Q1 2026.
• Paramount+: 4.0m UK homes (13.4%) had access to Paramount+ in Q2 2026, up from 3.5m in Q1 2026.
• Apple TV: 2.8m UK homes (9.6%) had access to Apple TV in Q2 2026, down from 3.1m in Q1 2026.
• NOW: 2.0m UK homes (6.7%) had access to NOW in Q2 2026, flat from Q1 2026.

 
Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight at Barb said:

“By far the biggest change this quarter came from Disney+, which added more than 1.1m homes – including just over 700k ad tier homes – compared to Q1 2026. This would appear to be a direct result of the partnership announced in March this year that saw Disney+ (with ads) added to eligible Sky packages for no extra cost. Meanwhile Paramount+ also added half a million homes to reach fractionally under 4m UK homes.”