Young TV Consumers May Be Delaying Traditional Pay TV Services

 

  by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 11:45 AM                                            

TV’s future long-term consumers, including Millennials, may be just delaying their purchase of full-price pay TV services in favor of broadband-only services -- not making everlasting decisions. Nielsen's Total Audience Report for the fourth quarter of 2015 says 28% of consumers ages 18-34 who live on their own are either broadband-only or broadcast-only homes, with 72% buying standard cable, satellite, or telco TV services. 

But this percentage sinks to 20% of those 18-34 consumers who are starting a family -- with 79% buying cable, satellite, or telco TV services. 
Nielsen says: “This implies that doing without cable and solely relying on Internet-streamed video may be a life stage choice rather than a permanent decision.”

Sixteen percent of those 18-34 consumers living on their own are broadband-only homes, and 6% of those consumers 18-34 who are starting a family. And Nielsen says those families with children -- of any age group -- tend to have multichannel pay TV services.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, Nielsen says those 18-34 spend two hours and 45 minutes a day watching live TV and one hour and 23 minutes for a total of 4:08 live TV viewing. 

This compares to all TV viewers who watched 4:27 of live TV viewing --  down from 4:31 in the fourth quarter of 2014.