Ofcom: Two-Thirds of U.K. Amazon/Netflix Subscribers Don’t Watch Originals

LONDON: New Ofcom research finds that just 31 percent of online TV subscribers in the U.K. watch the services' original shows such as Netflix's House of Cards.

In a survey of the reasons for using Amazon Prime Instant Video and/or Netflix, key drivers are related to access to back-catalogues of movies and programs, as well as new film releases, rather than access to original or exclusive content. Access to back-catalogues of films was cited by 63 percent of Netflix users and 60 percent of Amazon Prime users; access to back-catalogues of TV shows by 47 percent of Netflix subscribers and 42 percent of Amazon subscribers; and watching new film releases by 42 percent of Netflix subs and 45 percent of Amazon subs.

As for what they're watching on these services, respondents cited films (75 percent) and U.S. programming (49 percent) as the most popular. Additionally, 37 percent said they were watching U.K. programs, while just 31 percent said they watched the original programming from the subscription services itself. Children's content was watched in 23 percent of all subscription on-demand households, increasing to 40 percent among those with children at home.

The data comes from a larger U.K. Communications Market Report from Ofcom.