Streaming Video or Pay TV? It Depends on the Age of the Viewer
When TDG Research asked U.S adults who have both a pay TV and a streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) subscription which they would choose if they had to pick one, it found the difference was close: 57 would go with pay TV while 43 percent would go with streaming. It's a narrow gap considering that pay TV offers hundreds of live channels, primetime shows, and live sports.
But when TDG broke the results down by age, the differences were even more surprising: For adults 18- to 24-years-old, 65 percent go with the SVOD. However, those 55- to 65-years-old go with pay TV by 72 percent.
Considering that recent Parks Associates data found that as cord-nevers get older, they still don't want pay TV subscriptions, this is more bad news for cable and satellite. Viewers seem to set their preferences early and stay with them, so young people who prefer streaming services today are likely to always prefer streaming services.
"Traditional MVPDs face the growing threat that today's legacy+SVOD user could very well be tomorrow's vMVPD subscriber," says Michael Greeson, president of The Diffusion Group. "The stage is set. The question now is whether pure-play broadband pay TV providers—those without legacy assets, like Hulu TV—can capitalize on the opportunity."
The data comes from TDG's Benchmarking the Connected Consumer study, conducted in Q2 2017 and available for purchase.
Related Articles
All adult SVOD users can be broken into four mutually exclusive groups, research says, and surprisingly few of them are cord-cutters.
14 Jun 2017
The percent of households without cable, satellite, or telco TV service has more than doubled in five years, giving way to lower-revenue bundles.
15 Mar 2017
Could cord-cutting have reached a saturation point, with most homes unwilling to part with cable or satellite? A half-year survey suggests a trend.
06 Nov 2015