‘93% of North American pay TV subs use SVOD’

Some 93% of pay TV subscribers in North America also use one of more subscription video-on-demand services, according to TiVo research.

TiVo’s Q1 2017 Video Trends Report found that 65.6% of North American respondents in total use one or more SVOD services – up 4.9%year-on-year and 16.5% over three years.

Netflix remained the most popular SVOD service with 54.4% uptake among all consumers, followed by Amazon Prime Video at 27.3% and Hulu at 11.9%.

The report noted that while viewing of Netflix had increased by 2.5% year-on-year and Amazon by 4.2%, Hulu experienced “little to no growth” compared to Q1 2016.

“Of those with Netflix, nearly 60% indicated their favorite feature is profiles for each member of the household,” according to the report. “By allowing subscribers to create multiple profiles, Netflix is able to deliver more personalised content recommendations to each viewer.”

Price and the ability to search content were also cited as two of the other most appealing features of the service by 56% and 48% of respondents respectively.

In terms of viewing trends, 93.4% of respondents to the TiVo survey said they watch SVOD services on a daily basis, up 2.1% year-on-year, with 75.7% claiming to watch three hours or less of SVOD content per day.

Looking at pay TV habits, 84.8% of research respondents had a pay TV service in Q1. Of the 15.2% of people who did not subscribe to a pay TV service, 21.8% said they had cut the cord in the last 12 months – an increase of 4.4% year-on-year.

The main reasons given for cancelling a pay TV subscription were: price too expensive (79.7%); use of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon (57.6%); and use of an antenna to get basic channels (32.5%).

“These results further illustrate how disruptiveover-the-top streaming services are for the pay TV industry,” according to the research. “Not only did OTT/SVOD subscribers increase by nearly 10%, binge-watching on streaming services spiked as well, illustrating the content is enticing.”

Some 37.1% of respondents in Q1 said they spent at least US$101 per month — with some spending more than $150 per month — on pay TV services alone. However, only 78% said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their pay TV service.

The findings are based on a survey of some 3,100 consumers aged 18 and over in the US and Canada and was conducted in Q1 2017.