Antenna-only TV households now comprise 15 percent of U.S. broadband households, according to new market research from Parks Associates. Antenna-only households have been on the rise since 2013, researchers note in “360 View: Entertainment Services in U.S. Broadband Households.”
Parks also found a coincident decrease in pay-TV subscriptions and an increase in Internet-only video subscriptions in antenna-only households.
“Pay-TV subscriptions have dropped each year since 2014, falling to 81% of U.S. broadband households in Q3 2016,” said Brett Sappington, Senior Director of Research, Parks Associates, in a press release.
“Several factors have played a part in this decline, including growth in the OTT video market, increasing costs for pay-TV services, and consumer awareness of available online alternatives.”
Adding to pay-TV provider woes, Parks notes that customer satisfaction with pay-TV service has declined in each of the last three years.
Just 1 in 3 pay-TV subscribers said they were “very satisfied” with their pay-TV services, according to Parks’ OTT Video Market Tracker. More than 6 in 10 (63%) of broadband households said they had multiple OTT service subscriptions.
Antenna-Only TV Households
According to a press release about Parks’ latest 360 View report:
- Twice as many subscribers downgraded (12%) their pay-TV service than upgraded (6%) it in 2016;
- The likelihood of non-subscribers adopting pay TV has declined since 2012;
- Only one-half as many “Cord Nevers” adopted pay TV in 2016 (2%) as in 2015 (4%);
- The size of the “Cord Never” segment is slowly increasing.
“Pay-TV providers are adapting to address a fundamentally different video services market than existed three years ago,” Sappington commented. “Challenges still remain for consumers in aggregating and discovering their favorite content and being able to watch on their preferred screen.
“Live broadcasts of high-profile events remain a challenge for online delivery, though pay TV and broadcast TV conquered live distribution long ago. These challenges represent areas in which pay-TV providers, or new entrants, can still win consumer attention, viewership, and revenue.”
