Audio Video News

New research from Parks Associates shows that 53 percent of U.S. broadband households subscribe to both a pay-TV service and at least one OTT (over the top) streaming video service, chosen from a field with more than 200 active services.

“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,” said Brett Sappington, senior director of research for Parks. “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.”

Parks also reported that consumer awareness and use of TV Everywhere features has slowly increased over the past few years, reaching 34 percent as of late 2016.

Other recent research from Parks found that more than 50 percent of U.S. broadband households now watch Internet video on a television screen.

“For years, the television has been the stronghold for the traditional TV industry,” Sappington said. “Today, more televisions are connected to the Internet than ever, either directly or through connected devices like game consoles or streaming media players, such as Roku or Apple TV. The fact that one-half of broadband households watch Internet video on a television shows that we are well past a tipping point. The market has fundamentally changed.”

Other findings from the research include:

• 88 percent of computer-based viewing is from non-traditional “linear” video sources.
  
• 72 percent of non-pay-TV subscribers subscribe to a streaming video service, which is their primary source for content.
  
• 49 percent of broadband households in the U.S. subscribe to Netflix, by far the market leader.

“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,” Sappington said. “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.”