Just over one-in-five U.S. Pay-TV subscribers (21 percent) are making use of their Pay-TV provider’s TV Everywhere services at least once a month, according to new market research from the NPD Group. The market researcher’s latest findings may help allay fears of “cord-cutting” and losing subscribers to over-the-top (OTT) streaming video-on-demand service providers.
With cable, telco and satellite Pay-TV service providers concerned their subscribers may “cut the cord” or at least “trim” their use of Pay-TV services and replace them with OTT services, NPD found that people who have pay-TV and OTT subscriptions “are actually among the most active TV Everywhere users.” Three of four OTT streaming homes have Pay-TV subscriptions, and 25 percent use their provider’s TV Everywhere service at least once a month, according to the latest “NPD Group TV Everywhere Report.”
TV Everywhere Usage Trends
In addition to being more likely to have tried TV Everywhere services, subscribers to both OTT and Pay-TV are also using TV Everywhere more frequently than Pay-TV subscribers who don’t have OTT subscriptions. Thirty percent of OTT subscribers use TV Everywhere weekly as compared to 20 percent of TV Everywhere users who are not OTT subscribers.
“Though some [OTT] subscribers may be cutting the cord, the evidence is that the overwhelming majority are not only keeping the cord, they are lengthening it through aggressive use of TV Everywhere,” NPD Group senior vice president and industry analyst Russ Crupnick commented. “This speaks to the level of engagement they have with programming and a comfort in using the Internet to both access and interact with that programming.”
NPD also found that 90 percent of OTT streaming subscribers said they were satisfied with their TV Everywhere experience. Dual OTT-Pay TV subscribers saw the most value in the ability to watch anywhere in the home. Forty-six percent said they want to be able to download shows so that they can watch them outside the home.
“TV Everywhere is about mobility and control,” Crupnick elaborated. “Customers, especially subscription streamers, are becoming accustomed to over-the-top options where the location and device are no longer barriers, and they crave a similar experience with TV Everywhere. The way to keep [OTT] subscribers using TV Everywhere platforms is to make the experience even more portable.”
