Have you got “the best idea ever†for a streaming media service? You might just be nearing the catbird seat. (Psst! Intel, Google Fiber listen up!)
A poll from Harris Interactive suggests that nearly 40% of U.S. adults in that prime 18-34 age group would be willing to leave their pay-TV service provider for a streaming media subscription service. Three-out-of-10 35-54-year olds, and one-in-five people over 55 also would bite.
Caveat 1: Being willing to, as opposed to actually doing, is a big step.
Caveat 2: Operators are pretty comfortable with mild churn, and it considers absorbs subscriber losses of 5% or so to new services without too many qualms… that’s how AT&T’s U-verse and Verizon’s FiOS make their early market-share gains against Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision and the rest when they rolled out services in a new area. It gets tougher after those early defections.
Caveat 3: Harris has, in past surveys, show more =willingness than execution among “potential†cord cutters.
However, things are changing; OTT services are getting much better, much more well known, and are seeing huge gains—a la Netflix’s multi-million subscriber bumps annually—in service uptake.
But 40%? Maybe. Likely not.
The cord-cutting debate has fallen out of favor of late, with cord shaving becoming the new bad boy of the pay-TV industry. That’s despite continued subscriber losses among many pay-TV providers. Analysts, journalists and pay-TV execs all often add asterisks to subscriber numbers struggling to show gains (it’s really not just the transition away from analog to digital that’s driving those losses, folks; that is sooo yesterday).
A lot of folks in the industry also lean heavily on live sports as the No. 1 reason why potential cord cutters don’t turn into actual cord cutters. As if.
Verizon, a couple of months ago, trotted out a trial FiOS subscription that didn’t include sports… No ESPN, no regional sports networks. And, guess what? It’s getting some good uptake. It’s cheaper… and that is pretty appealing to folks who really don’t die to see Monday Night Football, or SportsCenter, or, well, you get the picture.
Let me climb off my soap box a minute and just put up the rest of the survey data.
Harris Interactive conducted the online survey (for Belkin) of some 2,100 adults. Other findings:
- 31% of those ages 35 to 54 and 20% of those over 55 would consider replacing their television. cable/satellite provider with a streaming media subscription service, such as Netflix or Hulu Plus, in 2013.
- 37% of Americans with children under 18 in their households are more likely to consider replacing their cable/satellite subscription than Americans with no children in their households (27%).
- 41% of U.S. adults between the ages of 18 to 34 plan to use either their desktop or laptop computers as the primary source of news and entertainment in 2013.
- 42% of adults anticipate a desktop/laptop computer to be the most-used technology device in their household, followed by the television (31%), and smartphones (27%).
