New consumer research from Leichtman Research Group (LRG) finds that 86 per cent of US households subscribe to some form of multi-channel video service. While major multi-channel video providers reported a cumulative increase of less than 1 per cent of subscribers over the past three years, penetration has slightly declined over that time as a result of a larger increase in the number of rental housing units. Multi-channel video penetration essentially peaked at 88 per cent in 2010 following the digital transition, having increased from 82 per cent in 2005.
Among TV households that do not currently subscribe to a multi-channel video service, 40 per cent subscribe to Netflix, 11 per cent to Amazon Prime, and 7 per cent to Hulu Plus – in total, 42 per cent of non-subscribers get at least one of these three over-the-top (OTT) services, and 58 per cent of non-subscribers do not get any. Overall, this results in 8 per cent of all TV households watching over-the-air (OTA) broadcast TV only (down from 10 per cent in 2010), and 6 per cent watching a combination of OTA and OTT programming. This group includes about 1 per cent of all household that do not subscribe to a multi-channel video service primarily because they can watch all that they want via the Internet or Netflix.
These findings are based on a telephone survey of 1,319 households from throughout the United States, and are part of a new LRG study, Cable, DBS & Telcos: Competing for Customers 2013. This is LRG’s eleventh annual study of the topic.
Glen Fulce 