Audio Video News

Analysts can’t seem to make up their minds about cord cutting. We’ve covered loads of studies asserting that viewers are shifting from traditional pay-TV to other viewing options. But some analysts demur, and occasionally we’ve cited them too.

The latest contrarian take is a report from the Video Advertising Bureau which says pay-TV subscriptions are holding steady at 83 percent of households. Based on Nielsen data, the report says 71 percent of homes use streaming to complement—not replace—pay-TV. Calling cord cutting a “false narrative,” VAB’s CEO Sean Cunningham says even the most frequent streaming viewers still “watch eight times as much TV as they do streaming video.”

His narrative is supported by J.D. Power, which gives consumer satisfaction with pay-TV 710 points out of a possible 1,000, though that’s down from 724 last year. Eight percent plan to drop pay-TV, an improvement from 9 percent last year.

Muddying the waters is another study from Hearts & Science, an agency of the Omnicon Media Group, saying that the habits of millennials and gen-Xers (MGX) are hard to measure. Traditional TV accounts for 10 of their estimated 30 hours of weekly viewing, but the remainder is hard to measure because ratings outfits like Nielsen are still figuring out how to measure content and ad viewing on phones, tablets, and other streaming devices. Nearly half of MGXers say they watch no traditional TV at all.