OTT video usage in Western Europe is continuing to expand, with 55 percent of U.K. broadband households and 51 percent in France watching TV programming and movies online, compared to 70 percent in the United States. But paid subscriptions in Europe are quite a bit less, where 30 percent of broadband households in the U.K. and 17 percent in France subscribe to OTT video. That compares to 64 percent of U.S. broadband households.

All data is from the recently released OTT Video Market Tracker from Parks Associates.

“OTT is definitely gaining traction across Europe. We are seeing new OTT video services spring up but not as many as in North America,” Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates, says. “In many parts of Europe, pay TV penetration is lower than the U.S., and European consumers have been reluctant to pay for video in the past due to so many ‘free’ options such as the BBC iPlayer.”

As more pay options enter the market, with content unavailable anywhere else, the culture of video viewing in Europe is slowly changing, he adds.

The iPlayer and services from Netflix, Sky, and Amazon are making the U.K. one of the top markets in Europe for OTT, Parks maintains. But new services are emerging in France, including a new transactional video service from retailer FNAC. The research firm also points out that Netflix has struggled in the French market, despite partnerships with many of France’s leading pay TV providers.

“In the U.S. and Canada, the quickly increasing volume of new options is driving high numbers of online viewing of TV and movies,” Sappington notes. “Each service is bringing new experiences for consumers, and many are providing new content that is unavailable elsewhere.”

AT&T, Sony and HTC have been the most recent to announce new OTT video services in the U.S. market, and Spotify recently added video to its freemium OTT music service. PlayStation Vue also recently became available nationwide across the U.S.