It’s still pretty early in the streaming wars, at least for those technology companies seeking to control the device ecosystem and become the home entertainment "gatekeepers" of the future.

According to a report published Wednesday by Interpret analyst Brett Sappington, half of consumers who plan to purchase a smart TV, or another connected TV gadget, over the next three months will be first-time buyers. 

This is an important figure, given the range of companies—Google, Comcast and TiVo, just to name a few—which are ramping up efforts to run down incumbent connected TV device market leaders Roku, Amazon and Samsung. 

The Interpret data would imply there’s still plenty of time to catch up. 

“With half of buyers being new to smart TVs and streaming media players, this sector of consumer electronics is primed for continued growth,” Sappington, Interpret’s vice president of research, said in a statement. “However, not all streaming device brands will enjoy the full benefit of that growth. Our research shows that each brand attracts a unique consumer audience, with differing characteristics, habits, and preferences that are often related to key features. Those brands that best meet consumers’ needs stand the best chance of gaining market share.” 

According to Interpret’s latest report, Streaming Devices: Platforms, Brands, and Consumers 2021, 10% of consumers plant to buy a smart TV in the next quarter. A similar percentage plan to buy a streaming stick, dongle or player over that span. 

Around 18% of Roku owners plan to replace their streaming device in the next three months, while 17% of Samsung gadget owners and 18% of Vizio owners plan to do the same.

Cancellation rates for U.S. subscription streaming video services increased from 15% - 20% in the second half of 2020, with consumers actively playing the field amid a surfeit of new service choices, according to a new report compiled by former Parks Associates analyst Brett Sappington, now flying the flag for Interpret as VP of research. 

Interpret’s Video Churn Today: Trends, Changes and Outlook 2021 report said that the amount of consumers signing up for subscription streaming increased by 14% over the last six months of the quarantined 2020 calendar year. 

But with these subscribers able to sign up, cancel, and sign up again, immediately and with no transaction costs, only 20% of streaming subscribers are content with their current alignment of providers. 

Notably, over the same six-month period, pay TV churn was only up two points to 7%.

Nearly 20% of OTT subscribers reported switching among services to watch platform exclusives, and 13% reported cancelling a service after watching a selected video series.

“Subscriber churn was a concern for many video service providers prior to the pandemic, particularly for pay TV,” Sappington said. The interruption in content, household income, and viewing behavior, along with heightened competition, has led to changes in how consumers value and evaluate video offerings. Users now realize that they can’t get all of their preferred content in one place. The industry is essentially training consumers to be churn tolerant. So, the question for the future is less about how to stop churn, and more about how to make churn work in your favor.”

Veteran video industry research analyst Brett Sappington has joined Interpret, a Culver City, California-based consumer insights consultancy. 

The Dallas-based Sappington served as the top video entertainment analyst for Parks Associates from April 2016 to December of last year, before transitioning to a brief role as head of marketing for Austin-based film production company Advanced Oil Mechanxi LP

In the role of vice president for Interpret, Sappington will be charged with growing the firm’s international research business, leading new efforts in global video entertainment research, while working with content producers, broadcasters, video service providers and technology leaders. Sappington, a fairly ubiquitous presence on the streaming video panel circuit in recent years, will also serve as Interpret’s spokesman for video entertainment data and trends. 

“Brett is a thought leader in OTT, pay TV and digital media and a well-known voice of the industry,” added Michael Cai, president of Interpret, in a statement “He brings years of industry analysis, market research and consulting experience to Interpret. His deep knowledge of the industry and consumers will help Interpret’s business reach a new level.”

Added Sappington: “This is a critical time in the evolution of the video services industry. WarnerMedia, ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, Disney and other major entertainment companies have seen shifts in viewing habits and made big bets on the OTT video space. The next two years will reveal the winners, losers, and new market dynamics. I am excited to help Interpret’s global client base successfully navigate this complex, changing marketplace.”

A new Parks Associates study that found 27% of pay TV homes say "sports programming is the primary reason" they subscribe comes at a time when sports content is preparing for a distribution overhaul.

Parks' figures fall toward the high end of the long-held range of households that watch televised sports on a regular basis -- about 15% to 30%, depending on which research study you believe. Subscribers' appetite for sports may be encouraging to cable executives -- for now.

Operators have often cited the modest viewing levels to fend off high-priced sports packages, although as the Parks study affirmed, devoted sports fans buy whatever it takes to see their preferred programming. And that's where the looming appeal of streaming enters the picture.

Brett Sappington, Parks' senior director of research, cited the shifting trends in sports carriage.

"While broadcast and pay TV remain key sources for live sports, OTT streaming options have become an important part of the live sports landscape," Sappington said. "Increasingly, leagues and networks are offering direct-to-consumer options. These services offer access to content that would otherwise not be broadcast and subscription options to those not subscribing to pay TV."

He pointed out that CBS and ESPN recently launched their own streaming services for sports content, and noted that these services will "both compete with and complement major services such as WWE Network and MLB.TV."

Related: CBS Sports HQ Service Hits the OTT Field | One Small Step for ESPN+

Sappington predicted that "over time, pay TV providers will likely partner with these types of services in order to round out their existing channel packages."

Migration Already Underway

One indicator of the shift to different platforms is the paucity of baseball games on over-the-air broadcast channels -- making it impossible for fans, for example, in Washington, D.C., to see games of the nearby Baltimore Orioles or for Los Angeles viewers to see any games without a pay TV subscription.

This year, only 199 Major League Baseball games will air on broadcast channels, compared with 338 games in 2013, according to data compiled by John Mansell, an independent sports business analyst. That means only 4.3% of local games appear on OTA TV; five years ago it was 7.3% of games. Mansell's data show that regional cable sports networks are carrying 4,420 baseball games this year compared with 4,270 games five years ago.

Just as broadcast TV -- once a staple of local sports fans -- has shifted to cable, there are many indicators of sports' looming move to streaming platforms. But that move is not without challenges.

"What's happened now for cable is extremely predictable," said a former sports network executive who requested anonymity. 

"If technology takes us to streaming, then the programs will go there," he added, calling it "the evolution of the economics."

"If streaming becomes the way we consume media, then the rights will go there," he said.

Viewing habits are changing, especially among millennials, who are already a problematic audience for sports producers and distributors. The leagues and some individual teams that control media rights to games are looking deeply at streaming options. In some cases, the streaming rights (for now) are bundled with cable rights, although that connection is likely to be a major negotiating point in future contacts, according to lawyers who are involved with the process.

Major League Baseball's emergence as a leading streaming technology provider (using tech it developed for its own MLB Network) is an indicator of the emphasis that sports producers are placing on the potential of that distribution platform, which eliminates the middleman (conventional networks).

Amazon last month nabbed the U.S. Open Tennis championship streaming telecasts in the United Kingdom for the next five years, a deal which analysts believe is the opening volley in Amazon's next wave of sports deals. Amazon's package will include live coverage plus on-demand highlights and other enhanced features.

Related: Greenfield Says Amazon Poised to be Most Disruptive Tech Giant

Social media platforms are also accelerating their sports programming line-ups. For example, Twitter recently unveiled plans with Disney's ESPN to create live sports programming and other content, including carriage of SportsCenter Live, with viewer participation. Twitter will also live-steam ESPN's fantasy sports podcast.

Related: 'SportsCenter' Expanding on ESPN’s New App

Facebook began live-streaming baseball games on its MLB Live page in March, carrying about one game per week. Although usage data so far is not available, a report this week indicated that latency glitches have annoyed viewers: 34% would cancel a service if they encountered such technical problems, the study found.

Twitter recently published its own research to show advertisers that the social media platform "makes live sporting events more engaging and memorable." The study emphasized fans' experience during live events when they use Twitter "as their second — and primary — screen to learn what’s happening in real time." 

The study, which used comScore data, showed an average 4.1% lift in unique visitors during sportscasts, and the "difference is even more pronounced with tentpole sports events" such as the Super Bowl or other championship games.

It's easy to relish the summary finding in Nielsen's Total Audience Report, which concludes that "in the expanding world of smart devices and the seemingly endless amount of sites and apps available, traditional means of media still hold their own."

In other words Nielsen's observation for the second quarter matches the results of many other recent media consumption reports: TV is still America's dominant, favored platform.

But you don't have to dig very deeply into the Nielsen data or look very far beyond it to see the shifting patterns emerging at a quickened pace. For example, Nielsen's report, which compares second-quarter data from 2014, 2015 and 2016, points out that the time users spend daily on smartphone apps or websites jumped by more than 50% -- from 1 hour to 1 hour, 43 minutes -- in the past two years, while TV viewing time dropped only 10 minutes per day (4:19 to 4:09) and DVR usage stagnated at about 30 minutes. Time spent using the Internet on a computer crawled up from 48 minutes two years ago to 57 minutes this year, Nielsen said.

The slightly slowing pace of TV viewing is more than replaced by attention to smartphone screens (and less so to PCs), albeit this particular Nielsen report did not tabulate simultaneous screen usage when a viewer could be "watching" TV and an online/mobile app at the same time.

Nielsen acknowledged that despite a slight decline in the number of TV channels available to cable and satellite viewers (still just over 200), the average TV channel options constitute only a fraction of what’s available via digital apps or websites, "so consumers are using more of them."  On average, adults visit about 55 websites via PCs, use 28 apps and visit 44 sites via smartphones, and use 14 apps via tablets, according to the latest quarterly data.

Perhaps most significantly, Nielsen said that however many TV channels are available, the typical household still only watches 9.6% of them.

Meanwhile, Parks Associates, in its "Disruption in Video Sourcing and Production" research report, found that nearly 35% of U.S. broadband households watch user-generated video on sites like YouTube, Vimeo and DailyMotion, more than 10 days per month. Three-fourths of U.S. broadband households access this content at least once per month, and -- back to the growing reliance on mobile access -- about 13% of U.S. broadband consumers said they have watched live-streamed video on a mobile app.

The study also identified growing convergence between traditional media and Internet video and the impact of streaming technologies, including live streaming through mobile apps such as Facebook Live and Periscope.

Parks found that men watch user-generated video online more frequently than women, with men watching 11 days per month compared with less than nine days for women. And 22% of respondents said they usually use an ad blocker to circumvent online video advertising while watching.

“Competition for customers and revenues will become even more intense in the future,” said Brett Sappington, senior director of research at Parks Associates. "New personalization technologies are driving simplified authentication, increased consumption, greater viewer engagement and enhanced revenue generation."

Yet another recent study further affirmed the migration of the crucial millennial audience to mobile platforms. In its "2016 Smartphone User Behavior Report: Millennials & Their Smartphone Habits," Coupofy, an online discount coupon dealer, found that social media -- not traditional news sources -- are by far the most popular ways that young audiences keep up on headlines: 55% of millennials go to social media apps and sites on smartphones for morning news, compared with 14% who browse news sites. More than two-thirds of millennials consume news through Facebook, while Twitter is the "primary news source for twice as many high school students as entrepreneurs."

And looking even farther forward, both mobile-centric Instagram and Twitter are more popular among iGen (also called Generation Z or Post-Millennials, those born after the year 2000) than among GenY millennials. As always, that raises the question of whether these social-media-focused youths will grow into conventional media consumption patterns or if their future is being cemented beyond the wired world.

To answer that question, look at the top Coupofy finding: 18% of young respondents who browse news first thing in the morning "think their smartphones made them smarter."