TiVo Study: Cord-Cutting Highlights Need for Creative TV Bundles

Pay-TV isn’t in à la carte mode yet, but service providers would be well served to develop more “creative” bundles to stay ahead of a small but growing cord-cutting trend, TiVo suggests in it Q3 2016 Video Trends Report.

The study, which based its results on a survey of more than 3,000 adults, found that 17.9% had cut cable or satellite TV service in the past year. The top three factors were price (82.9%), reliance on OTT services (59.5%) and use of an over-the-air antenna to get broadcast TV channels (28.1%).

Of those who still get a cable or satellite TV service, 9.1% said they switched providers in the past three months, up slightly compared to last year’s third quarter.

“While it may come as no surprise that price is the top factor, TiVo interprets the data to mean that pay-TV providers should get creative with not only their packages, but also their strategies for marketing these offerings,” TiVo said.

While some providers are moving to slimmer bundles to keep cord-cutting in check, TiVo’s study also shed some light on how some individual channels might be perceived if they were available on an à la carte basis.

ABC, at 70.7%, was viewed as the most-desired channel, and consumers would be willing, on average, to pay $1.52 per month for it. CBS was next (70.1%/$1.55), followed by NBC (65.5%/$1.54), Discovery (62.1%/$1.53) and History (59.7%)/$1.54).

Cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) are using authenticated TV Everywhere services to fight cord-cutting and expand their services to a wider range of screens in and out of the home. Awareness and adoption of TVE are both climbing slowly.

TiVo’s Q3 survey found that 47.1% were aware that their provider offers TVE apps, up 4% year-over-year up 12.5% over a three-year span. About 28.1% said they use their pay TV provider’s TVE app, up 4.4% from last year.