TNS: Propensity to Upgrade Pay TV Subscription Rises with OTT Video Use

As well as posing a long-term competitive threat, the rising tide of over-the-top (OTT) alternatives to pay-TV programming may be providing benefits to pay-TV service providers, according to new market research from TNS.

The quantity and diversity of video content entering the home via paid programming sources appears to be growing, resulting in healthy demand for the industry as a whole. Over the past year, about one in six pay-TV subscribers (16 percent) adjusted their level of video service by either upgrading to a higher tier or downgrading to a lower tier. Pay-TV households that also stream content via the Internet are more than twice as likely – 25 percent compared to 12 percent – as non-streaming households to have changed their pay-TV service level, according to TNS’s latest quarterly survey of nearly 25,000 US households, which was conducted by ReQuest.