Ring: Netflix remains atop must-have service, Paramount Plus rises

blank netflix side tablet stock webp td — (Stock image)

Key Points

Netflix and Prime Video are among the stickiest services in a streaming household, according to media analyst Brian Ring.
Three out of four streamers surveyed said they had a Netflix membership, with Prime Video and Disney Plus ranking a close second and third, respectively.
The findings of the survey will be discussed during the “Future of Live” webinar on Halloween.

When it comes to a household’s must-have streaming services, nothing beats Netflix — but other services are starting to gain ground as television and film fans sample around to find something to watch.

That is one of the key takeaways from a new consumer survey conducted by media analyst Brian Ring over the summer, the findings of which were shared with The Desk ahead of Ring’s quarterly “Future of TV Live” webinar on Halloween. (The author of this story is one of four panelists who are scheduled to participate in the event.) The survey was conducted in September for his Fall 2025 report.

Sixty-one percent of streamers said they pay for a membership to Netflix as of September, up from 54 percent who said the same three months earlier, according to a comparison of Ring’s survey data. Amazon’s Prime Video was in second place at 47 percent, up four percentage points from April, while Disney Plus was the third most-purchased service at 35 percent, an increase of about the same when evaluated on a sequential basis.

Paramount Plus moved up a spot in the list, from fifth place to fourth place, with 34 percent paying for the ad-supported or commercial-free tier of the service. The Paramount-owned service displaced Disney’s Hulu, which fell to fifth place at 30 percent adoption, three percentage points lower compared to April.

In all likelihood, Paramount’s gain was likely due to the start of the National Football League’s (NFL) regular season, which began in early September. Games from Paramount-owned CBS are offered across all Paramount Plus plans. Hulu offers an extremely limited amount of sports from ABC and ESPN without a separate ESPN Unlimited plan, which costs $30 per month.

Among streaming cable replacements, 19 percent said they subscribe to YouTube TV, and the same amount said they still pay for a traditional cable TV service like Comcast’s Xfinity TV or Charter’s Spectrum TV. The number of people subscribing to traditional pay TV increased 11 percent compared to April, when only 7 percent affirmed the same. YouTube TV’s popularity grew by 4 percent.

Fubo, a sports-centric streaming service that is in the process of merging with Hulu’s pay TV product, saw a modest increase from 3 percent in April to 4 percent in September, while 3 percent of streamers said they paid for a subscription to general entertainment service Philo.

The September survey was the first time that Roku’s ad-supported streaming service Howdy appeared on the list, with 2 percent of streamers saying they had a subscription to the service. The findings on Howdy were particularly notable because the app, which is only available on Roku devices, launched one month earlier.

The September survey is based on responses from 600 survey participants, while the April survey was based on responses from nearly 1,000 participants. Year-over data was not immediately available.

The Future of TV Live webinar takes place on Friday, October 31 at 12 p.m. Eastern Time. The event will be conducted via Zoom, and is free to attend with registration.

The full study is available to view with registration on the Ring Digital website.