Audio Video News

The inability to select individual channels and being forced to choose among a small selection of overblown bundles with channels you’ll never watch has long been a bugaboo for cable subscribers. And as the Age of Streaming TV hits stride, viewers are overwhelmed and becoming increasingly frustrated with the explosion of viewing options, according to a new study from Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Hub Entertainment Research.

Only 40 percent of TV viewers with one pay TV subscription reported feeling that their needs are being “very well met,” according to the study. That number rises to 47 percent for those who subscribe to two services, and 51 percent for those with three. Satisfaction increases more notably among the 62 percent of respondents who subscribe to four or more services.

In short, the TV viewing public is not happy with the multitude of options before them and finds the work required to choose between services increasingly “onerous.”

Only one in five (22 percent) survey respondents said having more viewing offerings makes it’s easier to choose what’s best for them, down 11 percent from findings in 2017. This low level of fulfillment is causing more TV viewers to lean toward providers that offer aggregated solutions: 69 percent of respondents want to be able to access all of their TV content from a single source, which compares with 31 percent who prefer to access sources individually.

Ultimately, four in ten (43 percent) respondents said they want services that allow them to choose the networks the pay for, even if doing so means paying more than a bigger bundle. Only 10 percent were in favor of a fixed bundle.

“The novelty of having so many options for TV content is wearing off,” said Peter Fondulas, one of the study’s authors. “Now consumers want simplicity and efficiency. Bundles that aggregate content from multiple sources are highly desirable — but only if those bundles include little or no content they know they won’t watch.”

Co-author Jon Giegengack added: It’s “not the price of traditional TV bundles that turns consumers off so much as how much of what they pay goes to content they don’t even use. Viewers would rather have a bundle comprised of just the content they care about – even if it means they have to pay more for each network.”

Conducted in January, the study, entitled “Best Bundle: Consumer Preferences in a Peak TV World,” surveyed 2,056 U.S. consumers with broadband connections who say they watch five or more hours of TV a week.