• by Wayne Friedman , April 19, 2013

Big household incomes have a lot to do with people getting those subscription video-on-demand services like Netflix.

Looking at the population as a whole, households making $100,000 or more a year are 85% more likely to have a streaming service, says Nielsen. Wealthy homes make up 37% of SVOD subscribers.

Nielsen was observing that interest and adoption rates vary by income and education by looking at homes that had a credit or debit card charge in the last 12 months to a service such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Blockbuster.com, or Vudu.

Nielsen also says that 43% of those with SVOD service have an income of $50,000 to $100,000; 20% of those with an SVOD service have an income under $50,000; and 63% of those with an SVOD service have no kids in the household.

Eastern time zone homes are big with SVOD -- 49% of those with SVOD service are on the East Coast. This compares to 26% each for Pacific and Central time zone TV homes. Of those SVOD subscribers, almost 30% of households have tablets.

Higher income levels correlate with worker categories: 42% of SVOD customers are professionals; 14% are clerical; and 17% are blue collar workers. Interestingly, "non-workers" registered a rate of 28%.