Citing growing concerns about employee safety amid a flood of new cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19, consumer goods analytics giant GfK is the latest to cancel its in-person presence at CES 2022 Research Summit in Las Vegas next week.

Instead it will push its presentation, “The New Faces of Techno-Mobility,” beyond CES (January 5-8) to what it calls an "interactive learning session" January 27.

Also: Google Cancels In-Person CES

GfK was focusing on automotive tech, including smart technologies like in-car voice assistants to autonomous driving, broadband technologies the FCC has been promoting by opening up spectrum for V2V communications. ■

A quarter of U.S. TV households have neither a cable nor satellite subscription, with younger people even more likely than the general population to be over-the-air-only viewers, market research firm GfK said.

That comes from GfK's 2016 Ownership and Trend Report, which shows that 17% of U.S. TV households rely on broadcast service, up from 15% in 2015, while another 6% rely on Internet video services including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu or YouTube and do not watch either broadcast or traditional pay TV, up from 4% in 2015.

Interestingly, the younger demo (18-34) is most likely to opt for broadcast versus pay TV, with 22% saying they are using over-the-air reception versus an MVPD and 13% saying they were using their TV sets to view Internet video.

“The fact that a statistically significant increase in broadcast-only reception occurred over just one year may be further proof that the cord-cutting/cord-never phenomenon is accelerating,” sayid David Tice, SVP in GfK’s Media & Entertainment practice. “If you include homes that have no TVs at all – about 3% of all households – then less than three quarters (73%) of U.S. homes continue to have pay TV service, with the attendant implications for all stakeholders – not just the pay TV services themselves, but also networks, content providers and advertisers.”

The study, a part of GfK’s The Home Technology Monitor reports, was conducted among 3,009 households.

Over-the-top SVOD services continue to stream into the market, including many niche offerings that can complement the broad offerings of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.

However, those three services are already near the maximum of what consumers are willing to pay each month, according to a new study from GfK that compared its April 2014 survey of 1,002 U.S. consumers age 13-64 who use streaming services, with one done in March 2016 with 1,007 in that same demographic range. 

That ceiling, GfK said, is set at $10 to $11 per month. Per its latest survey, consumers are willing to shell out $10.82, up 4% from its 2014 findings, compared to Amazon Prime ($9.10 per month, up 16%), and Hulu’s SVOD service ($9.96, up 1%).  The survey also included that consumers would pay $3.06 for YouTube (up 81%), and $7.53 for access to TV Everywhere services (up 105%).

According to VideoNuze’s review of the study, GfK also found that the cost (79%) was the top reason for picking an SVOD service, compared to “availably of specific programs” (69%) and “availably of new movies” (68%), while original and/or exclusive content as ninth on the list of key attributes for an SVOD service.

Netflix, already tops with respect to its subscription base, also led in terms of time spent per day  also led the way with 2 hours and five minutes, compared to Hulu (1 hour and 21 minutes), YouTube (1 hour and 15 minutes), TV Everywhere apps (1 hour, 13 minutes) and Amazon Instant Video (52 minutes).

The greatest percentage of consumers surveyed (33%) also said they used the service at least once a month to view TV shows or movies, compared to 23% for YouTube, 13% for both Amazon and TVE, and 12% for Hulu.

Among other findings, GfK said about half of streamers feel there are too many streaming services to keep track of, an indicator that there’s consumer interest in aggregation or bundling services “that will make their streaming life easier.”

Additionally, 81% of streamers said they want at least some curation, up from 68% in 2014. Just 18% said they prefer no curation. 

We already knew that Netflix dominates the downstream of fixed U.S. ISP networks, but new data from GfK offers a different angle on how the OTT-SVOD service is impacting consumer viewing behavior.

GfK’s study found that “regular” (monthly) Netflix users in the U.S. watch 10 TV shows per week through the service, as well as four movies during the same timeframe. For TV content, that’s a doubling of the number of shows per week those Netflix users were watching when GfK conducted a similar study last year.

“Projected to the full population, this means that the average US consumer ages 13 to 54 watches roughly 5 TV shows and 2 movies per week via Netflix using one or more platforms,” the company said of the study, titles: Over the Top TV 2015: A Complete Video Landscape.

Among other findings, GfK said Netflix viewing on mobile devices has also more than doubled in three years, with 24% of regular Netflix users saying they viewed the service on one or more mobile platforms in the past month, up from 10% three years ago.

Monthly viewing on TVs, meanwhile, has also risen -- from 36% to 47% among the same group, while watching on PCs (laptop or desktop) has jumped from 17% to 25%.

Roughly one-quarter of those regular Netflix users say they binge-view, meaning they watching three or more programs in one sitting, “often” or “all the time.”

“Netflix is a TV ecosystem unto itself, and now an established force in the total TV marketplace,” David Tice, GfK’s SVP of media entertainment, said of the findings. “But it represents just one aspect of an increasingly complex OTT picture, which also includes subscription services like Amazon Prime and Hulu, delivery systems such as Roku and Apple TV, and threatened incumbents like cable and satellite companies, which are trying to leverage their content with TV Everywhere options. “

While OTT is clearly going mainstream, it’s also a source of confusion for some consumers. The study also found that three of four people saying they had HBO Now, HBO’s new standalone OTT subscription offering, actually had HBO Go, the programmer’s authenticated TVE service. 

Nearly one-fifth (19%) of TV viewers now own at least one digital media players from three major suppliers – Roku, Google (the Chromecast adapter) and Apple (the Apple TV), filling a market need for TV-connected streaming devices that are less bulky than gaming consoles or Blu-ray players, GfK found in a new study.

According to an executive summary of the report, Digital Media Players 2014, Roku had a 6% share of the market, versus 5% for the Chromecast, and 4% for the Apple TV. The survey, conducted from late September to early October 2014, also factored in lesser-known -brands as well as recently launched products such as the Amazon Fire TV. Amazon began to ship its new Fire TV Stick last month, calling it the fastest-selling Amazon device ever.

On a broader level, the number of homes streaming content to their TV sets has jumped from 8% in 2010, to 37% in 2014, GfK said.

While the Chromecast was able to increase its share to 5% in less than a year, it also has more inactive users (16%), versus 10% of Roku homes and just 6% of Apple TV homes, according to the study. “Most inactive devices were substituted with another means of streaming,” said GfK.

The diversity of apps and content is one way competitors are trying to differentiate themselves in a crowded market, David Tice, senior vice president at GfK, said. “Price isn’t a huge issue,” he added. “Consumers are figuring out what content is available and what isn’t."

Google has been trying to close that content gap for the Chromecast. Last week, for example, Chromecast extended support for a batch of apps, including EPIX, Encore Play, Comedy Central, Sesame Street Go, Nickelodeon, TuneIn and YuppTV.

The report also found that 43% to 50% (the percentage varies by device brand) of digital media player owners said that they use the devices in addition to their regular TV viewing. That’s larger than the proportions (31% to 42%) that use the devices to substitute for traditional TV.

GfK’s survey also found that Chromecast owners are most likely to report that their digital player supplements, rather than replaces, broadcast TV. However, roughly one third (38% to 29%) of digital media player users said they have reduced or eliminated their pay-TV service due to their usage of the devices, with Roku owners as the most likely to report “cord slicing” or “cord cutting.”

GfK based its findings on interviews of 532 people who reported owning a Roku (265), an Apple TV (215) and a Chromecast (143), from the firm’s KnowledgePanel, which, it said, is representative of about 97% of U.S. households.