• by Wayne Friedman , October 26, 2017

U.S. TV consumers continue to add OTT (over-the-top) service channels to pay TV packages.

Parks Associates says that 53% of U.S. broadband homes now subscribe to a pay TV service and at least one OTT video service.

There are now more than 200 OTT digital video services in the U.S. market as of the third quarter, and 100 in the Canadian market, according to Parks, which says 60 new OTT video services started in 2016 and 2017 to date.

Seven OTT services closed during that same period.

"Many OTT services are evolving to be complementary to the market's largest players, instead of trying to compete directly against Netflix, Amazon and Hulu," stated Brett Sappington, senior director of research, Parks Associates. He adds that consumers are doing their own mix of TV channel/platform aggregating.

Parks says nearly 90% of OTT platforms offer “subscription options” -- free services, different ad-free premium tiers and other business models.

Research also shows that consumer “awareness” and use of TV Everywhere -- pay TV distributor-owned digital platforms for consumers who bought a traditional pay TV package -- have slowly increased over the past few years, reaching 34% by late 2016.