Less Than 8% Of Consumers Would Cancel Pay TV: Survey

About 5.5 million U.S. households, or less than 8% of broadband consumers, would consider dropping cable or satellite TV service in favor of online video, DVDs and over-the-air broadcasts -- but roughly half are pondering a switch to a new pay-TV provider, according to a survey from Parks Associates.

The survey shows that the primary competitive threat to pay-TV services continues to be other multichannel providers, according to Parks research director John Barrett. Just 0.5% of broadband households (approximately 350,000 homes) had previously subscribed to pay TV, cancelled it and now watch five or more hours of online video per week. "People who have made the switch to online video are few in number, and they don't watch much TV anyway," Barrett said. Households likely to cancel or switch cable or satellite TV service watch an average of 10 hours of Internet video each week -- versus a median of less than 1 hour among respondents who are unlikely to drop or change providers -- and express strong interest in "TV Everywhere" services that would allow online access to pay-TV channels, Parks found. In addition, this group rented more DVDs: The median number of DVD rentals within the last six months was 18, compared with two among all households.