Half Of US Homes Subscribe To Pay TV And Streaming

Time for some numbers! New research from Parks Associates has revealed that 53% of US broadband households subscribe to both pay TV and at least one over the top streaming video service.

Among a field of more than 200 active OTT services.

The survey revealed that consumer awareness and use of TV Everywhere features has slowly increased over the past few years, reaching the high of 34% by late 2016. Additionally, more than 50% of US broadband households now watch Internet video on a television screen.

As Brett Sappington, senior director of research for Parks put it:

“Many OTT services are evolving to be complementary to the market’s largest players, instead of trying to compete directly against Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Consumers are increasingly self-aggregating their OTT and entertainment services — they are adopting primary entertainment content sources and supplementing those sources with complementary video options.”

Sappington continues:

“Broadcasters, cable networks, and pay-TV providers have noted a decline in viewership for live, linear TV channels and a corresponding increase in on-demand viewing. The abundance of alternatives is clearly impacting the traditional TV industry. Well over 60 percent of households now subscribe to one or more OTT video services, and one-third subscribe to two or more services. Traditional players have taken notice and many have launched their own OTT offerings in an effort to get out in front of the shift.”

Other findings from the research show that 88% of computer base viewing is from non-traditional linear video sources, while 72% of subscribers that are not signed up for pay TV, subscribe to a streaming video service, which is actually their primary source of content.

Interestingly, 49% of broadband households in the US subscribe to Netflix, which is by far the market leader in this domain.