• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 30, 2012

One size still doesn’t fit all in television. Here’s another opinion from our friends overseas.

A U.K. study says so-called “over-the-top” TV services – Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Google, XboxLive andApple, for example – are, for the moment, complementary to established TV/video services coming from cable, satellite or telcos.

In this country, Netflix has 22-million plus monthly consumers, with Hulu and others reaching additional millions. More than 90% of the 115 million U TV households have access to cable, satellite or telco services.

Complementary? Face it. Some people – even in this economy – have mighty fine disposable incomes. Based on the fact that TV and media usage is still growing, those consumers believe there isn’t enough entertainment.

"While we expect OTT to become increasingly integral to the home video entertainment mix, there's little evidence yet of consumers dropping their pay-TV subscriptions in favor of purely operator-independent solutions," said a chief analyst of the report.

Sure they are a few brave souls who try to go it alone by just having broadband access to access Netflix, Hulu Plus and others.

Spending, say, $20 or so a month on Netflix and $50 for broadband access is less expensive than spending $100 or more on cable and $ on broadband. But if you are flush, what’s another $20 or even $30 a month for OTT services, anyway?

No matter. Most of the country – even in the face of an iffy economy – would rather keep what they assume to still be “traditional” TV.

Don’t worry about the cable companies. A growing piece of their business comes from broadband services –a hedge against mostly dwindling traditional video service revenues.

If that isn’t enough, here’s another possible saving fact for those companies, according to the U.K. study: “Although OTT TV services now more closely resemble those of their network-based competitors, they have a long way to go before they can match the quality and breadth of content of traditional pay-TV offerings."

So, it’s a complement, not a replacement. For now.