CEA: Consumer Tuning Out Over-the-Air TV

New research from the Consumer Electronics Association finds consumers are relying less and less on over-the-air TV signals and few U.S. households have interest in canceling their pay-TV service.

In a phone survey of 1,256 adults conducted in December 2010, CEA found the number of homes that rely on over-the-air signals for TV programming plummeted last year to 8% of all U.S. households with TVs. Over-the-air TV viewing has been steadily declining since 2005, according to CEA’s research. “Over-the-air TV was once the defining distribution platform,” said Gary Shapiro, CEA president-CEO. “But using huge swaths of wireless spectrum to deliver TV to homes no longer makes economic sense. Congress should pass legislation to allow for incentive auctions so free market dynamics can find the best purposes for underused broadcast spectrum, such as wireless broadband.” The study also found that pay-TV providers face little threat of their customers canceling their service in favor of over-the-air broadcast TV and Internet video. Seventy-six percent of respondents said they were unlikely or very unlikely to cancel pay-TV service. By contrast, just 10% of households said they were likely or very likely to cancel pay-TV service.