Fewer consumers feel the need to have both a virtual MVPD service and a traditional pay-TV subscription than they did just a couple of years ago, as a new report from TDG, a division of Screen Engine/ASI, shows that 23% of households subscribe to both types of services.

2018 was the peak of dual-service use, as TDG says that 37% of vMVPD subscribers also subscribed to a traditional cable, satellite or telco pay-TV service. This was because vMVPD platforms, like Sling TV, did not carry live programming from the major national broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC). As a result, consumers felt that the two services were necessary to satisfy household needs.

Today, services like Hulu Live TV and YouTube TV, both of which include the major four networks, have become market leaders. This has led to a decreased need for two separate services.

However, of the 23% of vMVPD subscribers who do have a legacy pay-TV subscription as well, they say that the programming requirements of their home require it, and that they often use the second service when they are away from home. Also, 71% of dual-subscribers see their legacy service as their primary service.

In 2018, TDG predicted that the 37% of dual-subscribers would decline to 10% by 2022, and believe that the latest data still supports that trajectory.

“Most OTT pay-TV services now provide a full complement of both broadcast and cable channels, meaning they are more capable of competing head-to-head with ‘fat’ legacy offerings,” said Michael Greeson, co-founder and president of TDG.

Greeson also makes the case that simply combining the data for traditional pay-TV and vMVPD subscribers for a cumulative pay-TV subscription tally is invalid and that the overlap should be recognized.

TDG will discuss the data from this report and other insights during its “Stream TV’s Summer Research Summit” on June 29.

This story was originally published by Next TV sibling publication TV Technology. 

As anyone of 11,433 video business surveys and studies will tell you, video usage is way up during this ongoing pandemic shelter-in-place moment.

Much of the attention has been paid to the subscription video on demand (SVOD) streaming services. But according to an April survey of 1,997 U.S. adults conducted by The Diffusion Group (TDG), pay TV VOD is way up, too.

According to TDG, 77% of adult broadband users who subscribe to a cable, satellite telco or vMVPD video service use the pay TV product’s VOD component. And of that user base, 18.5% report a “significant” uptick in their pay TV VOD usage; 41.7% report some increase in their VOD consumption.

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"Much has been written about recent spikes in the use of on-demand streaming video services such as Netflix and Disney Plus, and for good reason," said Michael Greeson, TDG president and principal analyst. "Our findings clearly demonstrate that, being largely confined to their homes, consumers see tremendous value in having access to on-demand shows and movies. And this holds true for all such services, including those offered by pay-TV providers.”

According to TDG, pay TV subscribers younger than 45 were twice as likely to report significant VOD usage expansion—23% vs. 13%.

Among virtual MVPD users, users report significant VOD consumption increases tallied 21%—slightly higher than the aggregate. The number dropped to 13% among satellite TV users. 

As anyone of 11,433 video business surveys and studies will tell you, video usage is way up during this ongoing pandemic shelter-in-place moment. 

Much of the attention has been paid to the subscription video on demand (SVOD) streaming services. But according to an April survey of 1,997 U.S. adults conducted by The Diffusion Group (TDG), pay TV VOD is way up, too. 

According to TDG, 77% of adult broadband users who subscribe to a cable, satellite  telco or vMVPD video service use the pay TV product’s VOD component. And of that user base, 18.5% report a “significant” uptick in their pay TV VOD usage; 41.7% report some increase in their VOD consumption. 

"Much has been written about recent spikes in the use of on-demand streaming video services such as Netflix and Disney Plus, and for good reason," notes Michael Greeson, TDG president and principal analyst. "Our findings clearly demonstrate that, being largely confined to their homes, consumers see tremendous value in having access to on-demand shows and movies. And this holds true for all such services, including those offered by pay-TV providers.”

According to TDG, pay TV subscribers younger than 45 were twice as likely to report significant VOD usage expansion—23% vs. 13%.

Among virtual MVPD users, users report significant VOD consumption increases tallied 21%—slightly higher than the aggregate. The number dropped to 13% among satellite TV users. 

DENVER — The notion that consumers have too many video app subscriptions and are not ready to take on new offerings from Disney, Apple, Warner Media and NBCUniversal is unfounded, according to Michael Greeson, president of research company TDG.

Presenting at the Pay TV Show Wednesday, Greeson said that only 10% of U.S. consumers in a recent survey indicated that they had too many subscriptions and were likely to cancel one soon.

TDG found that 66.5% say they have “just enough” video subscriptions.

“That doesn’t mean that when Disney+ comes along at $6.99 a month that they won’t add that service,” Greeson said. “It’s testing better than any other platform we’ve ever looked at.”

The analyst added that the concept of subscription fatigue is “a product of a legacy mindset” that video business executives should avoid being “locked into.”

Drilling down further, Greeson said in his presentation that the “channels” model adopted by Amazon, Roku and Apple has the greatest potential to control the video ecosystem going forward.

He noted that 55% of adult broadband users in America subscribe to Amazon Prime, and that 30% of direct-to-consumer apps are purchased through Amazon Channels.

“Amazon has huge resources,” he said. And it’s “not a matter of if” they take over a huge portion of the pay TV market, “but when.”

In a trend evidently led by Sling TV users, more than 20% of adult broadband customers who stream from an OTT subscription service are “cord cheaters,” in that they use the credentials of someone else living outside their respective households, The Diffusion Group found in a new study.

As you can see from the chart, TDG’s research found that 25.5% of Sling TV users cheat in that way, followed by Hulu Plus, Netflix, HBO Go (the programmer’s TV Everywhere service; it’s stand-alone OTT service, HBO Now, launches next month), and  Amazon Prime.

It’s interesting data that sheds some light on the practice of password sharing, something that HBO CEO Richard Plepler has called a “terrific marketing vehicle” for the next generation of viewers, and not something that’s had a material impact on HBO's business. TDG, meanwhile, said the study shows that there’s an “unfortunate mindset” that sharing passwords among friends and family has become perfectly acceptable.

“While it is widely acknowledged that ‘cord cheating’ is occurring, few comprehend how widespread the behavior has become,” Michael Greeson, TDG founder and director of research, said in a statement.

Despite the dubious honor of being on top of TDG’s cord-cheating table, the recently-launched Sling TV service is somewhat protected in that it’s starting off as a single-stream service. It does have programming rights with many programmers that allow for multiple streams, but it has yet to launch a tier that takes advantage of those rights. Netflix, meanwhile, makes subs pay more for multiple streams -- $8.99 per month for two streams (including HD), and a premium, four-stream tier that runs $11.99 per month (and includes access to 4K titles). Netflix’s basic $7.99 per month tier is single-stream and only supports standard-def resolutions.

But I was also curious as to how TDG arrived to these cord-cheating numbers. Greeson said the research was based on a February 2015 online survey of more than 3,500 adult broadband users selects randomly from a panel of more than 3 million “double-opt-in participants. Of that group, OTT SVOD users were asked to answer statements that best describe how they access a variety of subscription based services, a group that also included CBS All Access. Those respondents then noted if they or someone in the their household subscribes to one of them, or if they use a friend’s or family member’s login and password.

And the cord-cheating label might sound familiar to you. FreeWheel, the online ad tech firm now owned by Comcast (not Cablevision Systems' new WiFi only phone service), uses that term in its quarterly video trends reports. But instead of using it to describe password sharing as TDG does, FreeWheel’s use of the term to describe a trend in which consumers use third-party, over-the-top VOD services as an alternative to a pay-TV operator’s VOD offerings, including authenticated TV Everywhere apps.