Estimate: 800,000 U.S. Households Abandoned Their TVs For The Web
Totally thought someone else would post this before I could. This report has been floating around the net today, lots of people assuming it means one thing or the other. I just think it’s a great sign in general. And not strictly bad news for MSOs, but hopefully will encourage them to continue looking for new ways to provide a valuable service–similar to what happened with the phone companies when VOIP came in.
Cord cutters don’t yet represent a serious threat to the $84 billion cable/satellite/telco TV access industry, which counts an estimated 101 million subscribers. But they are a leading indicator of the shift to TV viewing on the Web. The cord-cutters make up less than 3 percent of all full-episode viewing on the Web. The rest comes from people who are only beginning to watch occasionally online. An estimated 17 percent of the total weekly viewing audience watch at least one or two episodes of a full-length TV show online. Last year, that percentage was 12 percent, and next year it is forecast to grow to 21 percent.