Despite Grumbling, Most Pay TV Customers Stay With Provider

by Wayne Friedman , June 20, 2014

While there is some dissatisfaction among pay TV consumers, most subscribers have not altered their opinions about their pay TV provider service.

According to a new DigitalSmiths first-quarter survey, 58% of respondents are “satisfied” with their pay TV provider; 22.2% are unsatisfied, and 19.7% very satisfied. The survey says the 22.2% unsatisfied mark is at its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2012.

Looking at the first quarter, 94.3% have not switched their cable/satellite/telco providers in the last six months. But 5.7% did change their pay TV provider.

DigitalSmiths says that 16.2% increased services during the period and 16.3% decreased services, and 64.3% of respondents do not subscribe to revenue-generating premium channels such as HBO, Showtime or sports packages.

Going forward, 31.8% say that in the next six months they “may be” looking to make more changes overall, with 7.5% saying they plan to change their pay TV providers.

Key for those “cord-cutting” analysts is that 2.3% are planning to switch to an online app or rental service and 3.8% plan to “cut” their cable/satellite service.

But 37.9% also said they would consider keeping their existing service “if your provider released new functionality that made it easier for you to find something to watch?”

DigitalSmiths, a TiVo company whose business is focused on video discovery, surveyed over 3,090 consumers 18 years and older conducted in the first quarter of 2014.

"Couple watching TV" photo from Shutterstock.

cable tv, trends, tv

2 comments about "Despite Grumbling, Most Pay TV Customers Stay With Provider".

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Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, June 23, 2014 at 9:21 a.m.
What is the future of a business in which its customers are "grumbling"?
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Doug Garnett from Protonik, LLC, June 23, 2014 at 4:53 p.m.

Typically, Doug, quite good. People should be expected, socially, to complain about many things. Taxes. Their neighbors dog. The bank. Their CC company. Airlines. The list goes on and on. Grumbling is especially high in any kind of public utility situation (e.g. Cable). Part of the problem is that the alternatives are extraordinarily bad. Make up 30 hours of weekly video with cr**ppy short You
Tube videos? I don't think so. Netflix? Yikes -only if you can find anything you want after you've finished OITNB's latest season. Amazon Prime? Can you say "Netflix part II"? It will be interesting how it all shakes out. And the VC pirhanas will try to tell us this survey indicates a desperate need to "disrupt" (the thing that really needs disruption in a desperate way is the VC industry). I suspect cable will end up supplying our entertainment needs for decades to come...in whatever version that may be.