With the progress of digital audiovisual services such as YouTube, Netflix or Spotify, streaming and downloading online content is becoming more and more popular. A survey from May 2017 found that more than half of respondents in the United Kingdom have used YouTube in the past three months. And according to the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board, the number of subscribers of the video on demand service Netflix increased rapidly in the UK, from roughly 2.8 million in the first quarter of 2014 to more than 5.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. As of 2016, the most popular types of services used for accessing films or TV series online in Europe were professional ones, according to 25 percent of surveyed individuals. In Finland, the share of respondents streaming film and TV shows on professional platforms was 44 percent. Online broadcast television came in second place (24 percent).
To access online music, Europeans preferred to use sharing websites more than professional streaming services in 2016 – 34 percent of the population aged 15 to 24 years listened to music uploaded by individual users, artists or companies, whereas 27 percent of individuals in this age group consumed music content via free or paid professional websites. When choosing a music content service, 74 percent of Italian respondents thought it should be freely available. Approximately half of surveyed individuals said that a streaming service has to offer good quality. A poll conducted in the Netherlands in 2015 found that almost a third of the population used Spotify for listening to music and therefore it was the most popular music streaming service in the country. Google Play Music and Deezer ranked far behind, second and third respectively.
