Netflix and Amazon Prime are the most popular OTT/streaming services, according to media research firm Parks Associates. Hulu, HBO Now and Starz round out the top 5.

The top 10 services are:

1. Netflix

2. Prime Video Users (Amazon Prime)

3. Hulu (SVOD)

4. HBO Now

5. Starz

6. MLB.TV

7. Showtime

8. CBS All Acess

9. Sling TV

10. DIRECTV Now

“Which company is the leading OTT video subscription service remains a topic of debate,” said Brett Sappington, Senior Director of Research, Parks Associates. “According to our estimates, Amazon has more Prime Members than Netflix has subscribers. However, when you consider only those Prime Members that use Prime Video, Netflix is the largest. Hulu remains the third largest but continues to grow its subscriber base.”

With pay-TV subscribers continuing to cut the cord, alternatives like so-called “skinny bundles”--OTT services that offer a smaller, more select lineup of channels--are becoming more popular, as represented by Sling TV and DIRECTV Now in the top 10. Similar services include Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV, and PlayStation Vue. Online pay TV has been one of the fastest growing segments in the OTT video space, with aggressive marketing by all, according to Parks.

“HBO, Starz, Showtime, and CBS All Access demonstrate the powerful attractiveness of original content through series like Game of Thrones and Star Trek: Discovery,” Sappington said. “This pattern suggests new services such as WarnerMedia’s DC Universe and the forthcoming streaming service from Disney could achieve success quickly.”

The top subscription sports OTT video services are MLB.TV, WWE Network, and ESPN+. MLB.TV continues to lead the sports OTT subscription category, benefiting from its long tenure as a streaming service and popularity among dedicated baseball fans. ESPN+ is a newcomer to the OTT video marketplace but recently announced that it had exceeded 1 million subscribers.

Parks Associates’ OTT Video Market Tracker tracks the content offerings, business strategies, and subscription numbers for OTT services in North America. Additional data from these services:

• OTT video subscription penetration has reached 64% of U.S. broadband households. Over two-thirds of these households subscribe only to one of the top three services, Netflix, Prime Video, or Hulu.
• 36% of broadband households subscribe to two or more OTT video services.
• The online pay-TV audience is similar to the OTT audience—they are younger and quicker to adopt new technologies when compared to traditional pay-TV households.
• Over the past three years, OTT churn rates have gradually fallen each year from 31% of OTT subscriptions cancelled each year in 2015 to 28% in 2018.

ENGLEWOOD, CO--DISH has announced that AT&T has pulled HBO and Cinemax from its satellite pay TV and Sling TV services due to what DISH calls “untenable demands designed specifically to harm customers, particularly those in rural areas, as well as damage competing pay-tv providers.”

DISH is using the dispute to further its claims that when AT&T acquired HBO/Cinemax parent company Time Warner earlier this year after winning an antitrust suit filed by the DOJ, there were no guidelines set in place to ensure that AT&T would treat subscribers to its channels fairly.

"Plain and simple, the merger created for AT&T immense power over consumers," said Andy LeCuyer, DISH senior vice president of Programming. "It seems AT&T is implementing a new strategy to shut off its recently acquired content from other distributors. This may be the first of many HBO blackouts for consumers across the country. AT&T no longer has incentive to come to an agreement on behalf of consumer choice; instead, it's been given the power to grab more money or steal away customers.

The move constitutes the first time in its 40+ year history that HBO is going black on a major pay-TV provider. For its part, AT&T defended itself, decrying DISH’s past negotiation tactics.

“During our 40 plus years of operation, HBO has always been able to reach agreement with our valued distributors and our services have never been taken down or made unavailable to subscribers due to an inability to conclude a deal,” HBO said in a statement. “Unfortunately, DISH is making it extremely difficult, responding to our good faith attempts with unreasonable terms. Past behavior shows that removing services from their customers is becoming all too common a negotiating tactic for them. We hope the situation with DISH changes soon but, in the meantime, our valued customers should take advantage of the other ways to access an HBO subscription so they can continue to enjoy our acclaimed programming.

DISH says the majority of its HBO subscribers are based in rural areas where they are less likely to have access to high speed broadband, which would allow them to substitute AT&T’s “HBO Now” streaming service.

"AT&T's actions are a deliberate slap in the face to rural Americans," said LeCuyer. "And furthermore, they are anticompetitive. AT&T, a company worth more than $200 billion, is intentionally punishing those who don't have big-city broadband access, in an attempt to push customers to the only other satellite provider, its own DirecTV."

DISH says the market for HBO has changed since DISH last signed a carriage deal in 2015: HBO set the market price at $15 per month with its launch of the direct-to-consumer HBO Now service; and AT&T has announced plans to launch a new direct-to-consumer HBO service next year.

"Usually when there is a programming dispute, we don't see eye to eye on rates; but HBO has already set the going rate, so now they're seeking to extract money a different way," said LeCuyer.

DISH says AT&T is demanding it pay for a guaranteed number of subscribers, regardless of how many consumers actually want to subscribe to HBO.

"AT&T is stacking the deck with free-for-life offerings to wireless customers and slashed prices on streaming services, effectively trying to force DISH to subsidize HBO on AT&T's platforms," said LeCuyer. "This is the exact anticompetitive behavior that critics of the AT&T-Time Warner merger warned us about. Every pay-TV company should be concerned."

DISH said it would welcome “binding, baseball-style arbitration” to determine the fair market value of HBO and Cinemax but that during the arbitration process, AT&T would be required to restore its channels to DISH customers.

"Rather than trying to force consumers onto their platforms, we suggest that AT&T try to achieve its financial goals through simple economics: if consumers want your product, they'll pay for it. We hope AT&T will reconsider its demands and help us reach a swift, fair resolution," added LeCuyer.

DISH said it would credit eligible Sling TV customers for time they do not receive HBO or Cinemax.

While Netflix continues to steadily acquire mobile users across the globe, other SVOD services are actually being abandoned by these smartphone watchers in select regions, a new study by Juniper Research suggests.

The research company polled 500 mobile video watchers in the U.S., UK and China in September. According to its findings, in the U.S., Netflix was the only service that showed positive retention, with 6.3% more users reporting adoption of the platform vs. those saying they abandoned it.

Rival subscription video on demand (SVOD) platform Amazon Prime, however, was in the red at -2.9%, while HBO Now experienced a whopping -19.2% among the U.S. users sampled.

So just how revealing is Juniper’s sampling? Beyond the fact that the UK research company doesn't express any timelines to its research, it's all somewhat questionable. In February, HBO Now confirmed steep subscriber growth to 5 million users, with the platform being amply distributed through Amazon Channels. And over the spring, Amazon confirmed that its Amazon Prime program—which, in addition to SVOD, includes stuff like free shipping—now has 100 million users.

For its part, however, Juniper seems to want to make the point that heavy video users are adopting more than one SVOD platform, but are struggling to find the right combination of services.

“The use of multiple subscriptions suggests that no one provider offers enough to currently satisfy consumers,” said Lauren Foye, who authored the Juniper report. “Juniper finds a growing danger in users reducing, or switching SVOD subscriptions, as monthly fees inevitably rise as a result of ever-increasing content spend; Netflix alone is set to spend $13 billion this year.”