Few Consumers See Pay-TV As Their Dominant Video Content Source in 2020

For US adults, internet TV services are a more likely future content source than satellite pay-TV, according to a newly released study from Irdeto.

Interestingly, user experience was cited as one of the key factors by those planning to watch mostly internet TV and by those seeing pay-TV as their primary viewing source in 2020.

The study asked respondents which type of service they plan to watch most of their TV/movies/sports content through in 2020, with 27% citing internet TV (a TV enabled with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, etc.) and 18% pointing to satellite pay-TV.

The plurality of respondents — 33% — said they would likely watch a mixture of services so they can pick and choose the content they want.

(The remaining respondents don’t plan to watch content on either service.)

There were — predictably — varying attitudes when sorting by demographic.

Among youth (aged 18-34), internet TV was the leading future source for 40%, more than triple the share who see pay-TV (12%) as being their dominant service.

But those aged 55 and older (who watch the most tradition TV) were more likely to plan for a mixture of services (26%) or primarily pay-TV (23%) than for internet tv (17%).

Focusing on internet TV, other demographic variables reveal that:

• Men (30%) are more likely than women (25%) to see it as their primary viewing source in 2020;

• There is little discernible different when sorting by race;

• Respondents with a post graduate education (36%) were significantly more likely to see it as their primary source than those with lesser education levels (25-27%); and

• Those with children under 18 were more likely to see internet TV as the dominant source than those without kids of that age (24% vs. 25%).

Among respondents who plan to use internet TV for the majority of their viewing, the three identified reasons for doing so were all given equal weight — 41% cited the user experience and recommendations being better; 41% cited the user experience and recommendations being better; 40% cited the ability to watch content on more devices as a reason; and 29% pointed to a preference to be able to watch multiple episodes at once as a factor.

Among adults planning to use satellite TV, 56% said it was because the quality and user experiences better, while 32% said it was because there is more content available.

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