Most Pay TV Subscribers Unaware of TV Everywhere Options

Most cable subscribers have no idea their TV subscriptions come with TV Everywhere services. 

 

“Is anybody watching these [TV Everywhere] services? Do they even know that these services are available?” Parks Associate analyst Brett Sappington asked in a Webinar. “What we found is that by and large the answer is no.”

 

About 20 percent of subscribers knew of their bundled streaming options, and 53 percent of them reported using it at least once a month. Across different satellite and pay TV providers, AT&T subscribers were the best informed, with a 26 percent awareness rate, followed by Cablevision/Comcast (24 percent) and Verizon Wireless (22 percent). Among the major telcos, Time Warner came in last at 12 percent. This is particularly interesting given our recent write up on its content-distribution strategy, the four any's. 

 

For now, consumers are somewhat in the dark about TV Everywhere options. The main obstacles appear to be consumer fears of new changes and not enough marketing dollars to raise awareness. 

 

“If TV Everywhere services were originally designed to be a defense against over-the-top video services, this lack of [consumer] awareness is a significant problem,” Sappington added. Consumers are, however, familiar with the TV Everywhere options of Netflix and Hulu, with more than 26 million and 1.5 million paying subscribers, respectively.

 

Service providers have a long way to go to educate subscribers on their offerings. Every additional step — downloading an app, watching a video — poses an opportunity to lose paying customers, Sappington says, adding that viewers are daunted by worries fighting over billing issues with their TV providers.