The Walt Disney Company’s cornerstone streaming service Disney Plus saw the lion’s share of new customer additions in the United Kingdom during the second quarter (Q2) of the year, according to the latest report from Kantar.
The insights firm said Disney Plus had 19 percent of the new subscriber market in the U.K., with Amazon’s Prime Video coming in second at 14 percent. Prime Video saw the lowest churn — even lower than Netflix — during Q2 at just 2 percent, Kantar said.
Disney Plus was boosted by the addition of the 20th season of the hit medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” which is exclusive to the streaming service through its Star content tile. The ad-supported version of Disney Plus debuted last year, and streamers have reported the experience to be higher than some of Disney’s competitors, Kantar said.
Meanwhile, a farming documentary called “Clarkson’s Farm” resonated with British audiences and drove more subscriptions to Prime Video during Q1, second only to Netflix’s “Baby Reindeer,” Kantar found. That said, Prime members are not thrilled about Amazon’s decision to incorporate ads by default and charge Prime Video streamers a £3 fee if they wanted uninterrupted streaming of shows and movies through the app; Prime Video had a net dissatisfaction ranking of -17 percent, compared to -6 percent for Netflix and -7 percent for Disney Plus.
Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) clocked in with the third-highest new customer subscriptions as measured by Kantar, driven by the inclusion of more live events from TNT Sports and Eurosport through the brand’s direct-to-consumer service Discovery Plus. Max, which is available in other parts of Europe, is unavailable in the U.K. due to an existing rights agreement with Comcast’s Sky Group for HBO and other Warner Bros Television content.
