Barb’s latest establishment survey, covering the third quarter of 2020, found that 17m households have a SVOD service of some kind, an increase of 3m households since the same period in 2019.

The figures show that Netflix remains the UK’s most popular SVOD, with 14.8m households signed up to the service. Amazon Prime was second with 9.5m households – a 49% rise in the past year.

Barb said the overall rise was due to an in crease in the number of SVOD services, with this year’s biggest new arrival, Disney+, already available in 3.4m households.

Barb did not carry out research for the second quarter of 2020, covering the months of lockdown in April, May and June, due to the suspension of face-to-face interviews, with fieldwork recommencing in August and September.

Justin Sampson, chief executive of Barb, said: “Understanding the take-up and viewing of SVOD services is high on our priority list. It’s no surprise to see these growing strongly as people have been forced to spend more time at home this year.”