• by Aaron Baar , July 5, 2011

Despite the increased options for watching television programming (or content, to use the term du jour) away from the set, people are still reluctant to dump the box completely.

In its inaugural "Residential Pay-to-View" study, J.D. Power and Associates found only 3% of U.S. consumers who subscribe to either cable or satellite television services have completely "cut the cord" from those services in favor of other viewing options.

"It's not the gloom and doom that was predicted a few years back," Frank Perazzini, director of telecommunications at J.D. Power, tells Marketing Daily. "In the two- to three-year window, the current model is still viable."

As would be expected, younger consumers were more likely to break with the pay television services than the older generations. Among Gen Y consumers, 6% said they no longer subscribe to a residential television service, compared with only 2% of Baby Boomers. (Generation X, not surprisingly, falls right in the middle with a 4% cutting rate.) That generational divide will be the area to watch in future studies, Perazzini says.

"We don't really have something to compare it to right now," he says. "We'll have to keep an eye on that Gen. Y subscription rate."

However, the study did find some areas for concern. During the recession, U.S. consumers, rather than cut out pay television entirely, cut back on premium channels like HBO and Showtime, Perazzini says. As the economy has stabilized, consumers are opting to pay for another service, such as Netflix or On-Demand programming, rather than re-subscribe to the premium channels, he says.

"Instead of going back to premium channels, they're moving to a pay-to-view option," Perazzini says.

Overall, the study found that more than a quarter (25%) of video service customers watch some programming on a handheld device. Mobile phones are still the most common device, with 15% saying they used it to watch a video, though tablets, which 12% of people said they watched programming on, are coming on strong.