Commentary

Only 20% Of Cable Subs Have Heard Of TV Everywhere, But They Watch TV On Tablets

Cable and satellite viewers don’t have a clue they can watch shows from their providers anywhere besides the TV, but they sure as heck know how to find videos to watch on their mobile devices. 

A recent Parks Associates survey found that only 20% of pay-TV customers know about TV Everywhere options from their service provider as of the first quarter of this year, and of those who did, about half use it once a month. That’s not terribly promising for a service that’s supposed to prevent defections to over-the-top options. About one quarter of AT&T U-Verse, Cablevision and Comcast subs knew about the service, with the awareness dipping for Verizon, Dish, Cox, DirectTV and Time Warner customers.

These numbers should be concerning to service providers, especially given that consumers are already aware of and actively watching TV on mobile devices -- presumably content they find on their own on existing services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and Amazon. About 14% of tablet owners watch more TV and 24% watch less TV as a result of having a tablet, although those figures vary widely by demographic, according to a just-released study conducted by ABI Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau.

The fact that tablet and smartphone video viewing is impacting TV viewing at all is a trend to be watched by programmers and providers. The smart ones should figure out how to take advantage of this movement, or at least how to market better their own service offerings that extend to mobile devices.

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