Core TV Channels Shrink

TV viewers’ core group of channels are shrinking.

In a second-quarter 2016 survey done by TiVo’s Digitalsmiths, the company says 83% of consumers watch 10 or fewer channels, with 2% fewer respondents watching 11 to 20-plus channels -- down 1.5% versus a year ago; 2.0% from two years ago, and 4.1% from three years ago.

This was the result when responding to the question: “How many channels do you typically watch, on average?”

The number of those who “feel overwhelmed” by the amount of channel options is slightly growing -- now 32.3% from 28% three years ago.

At the time, the survey noted a slight decline in respondents who were interested in so-called “skinny bundles” -- down 3% from a 76.8% interest level versus a year ago.

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Of those who are interested, the average price for what people would pay for a skinny bundled TV network is slightly up to $41.04 -- $3.60 per channel -- $1.52 higher than in the first quarter 2016.

When it comes to cord-cutting, the survey says results have stabilized -- some: 7.2% of pay TV subscribers plan to cut services altogether, up from the 7% in the first quarter and higher than the 4.5% in the second quarter 2015.

Over 50% plan to stay with their current pay TV provider -- slightly lower than the 53.4% in the second quarter a year ago. Over 8% of pay TV subscribers switched providers in the last three months.

The survey was done in the second quarter, interviewing 3,114 viewers in the U.S. and Canada. Digitalsmiths offers content discovery/search services for TV-video providers.

1 comment about "Core TV Channels Shrink".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 31, 2016 at 11:31 a.m.

    When will they learn that you can't get accurate answers about TV viewing by asking such generalized questions. If TiVo really wanted to find out how many channels people think they watched, rather than using a far more precise meter measurement like Nielsen, at least ask them about each of the top 50-60 channels individually, with a proper description of their shows and ask whether any of these shows had been seen in the past month. By the way, how many channels does the average TiVO panelist view in a month? How does this jibe with the survey findings as reported in this article?

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