Almost half of Dutch adults have a subscription to a channel like Netflix or RTL XL or pay for to watch a single programme, market research group Gfk said on Tuesday.

Last year 44% of the over-18s paid to watch special channels but this has now gone up to 49%. The increase is ‘significant’ and payment for online video has become normalised, spokeswoman Barbara Schouten said.

However, there is a sharp difference between the age groups. The 18 to 34-year-olds watch some three hours 40 minutes of online video a day, compared with just 40 minutes among the over 55s.

‘Youngsters are incredibly spoiled with internet and their smartphones,’ she said. ‘They consume in a completely different way.’