EXCLUSIVE: New research has shone a spotlight on how American viewers have flocked to UK streaming content since the strikes.
Viewing to British shows and movies on Netflix and Prime Video in the States skyrocketed by 40% between Q2 2023 and Q1 of this year, representing an additional 400 million hours watched, according to Digital i research shared exclusively with Deadline. The Q1 2024 figure was the highest since Digital-i started counting three years ago. At the same time, viewing to all content on these platforms rose by the smaller figure of 9%.
British shows to have hit the heights in the States included Fool Me Once, Bridgerton and Baby Reindeer, which made up three of the five most-watched series in the U.S. between January and May of this year. Other titles to have performed well included The Gentleman, 3 Body Problem, and Prime Video double Clarkson’s Farm and The Grand Tour.
Digital-i counted any show that was either commissioned out of the UK or where “significant production was undertaken in the UK,” with the theory that the lengthy Hollywood labor strikes, which saw actors and writers down tools for months, may have pushed more content production and spend into the nation. This means shows like Netflix’s 3 Body Problem are included. Research from Ofcom earlier this week found that UK viewing to the big streamers rose by 6% in 2023.
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The research comes just a fortnight after Amazon bought Bray Studios, where The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is filmed, while a recent Netflix UK slate featured splashy shows from Steven Knight, Stephen Graham and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Productions. Ampere Analysis research published several weeks back found that Netflix and Amazon had “ordered the majority of their titles from outside the U.S.” last quarter for the first time.
Digital-i Chief Analytics Officer Matt Ross said the data proves that UK content has “served to reduce the impact” of the strikes, allowing SVoDs to “produce a number of global hits.”
“Content strategy for major SVoD players is becoming increasingly global, and the UK has and will continue to be an important source of content that can perform well across multiple territories,” he added.
When all global viewing was taken into account, Digital-i said hours of British content watched rose by a similarly high 31% during Q1, an increase of more than 1 billion hours viewed, far eclipsing the 2% rise to all content on Netflix and Prime Video. In Europe, increase for UK titles was 19%, compared with a 10% drop in viewing to all content.
The post Revealed: How American Viewers Have Flocked To British Content On Netflix & Prime Video Since The Strikes appeared first on Deadline.
