• by Wayne Friedman , March 7, 2019

Of the 39 million U.S adults who switched all home media and communications services last year, packages containing TV were the largest category in those changes.

Nearly 50% of U.S. adults switched all combinations of packages that contained TV -- TV-only, internet/TV, or internet/phone/TV, according to a study by Broadband Now Research.

The survey of 10,000 U.S. adults is nearly 16% of U.S. adults -- 39 million -- who added or switched home services in 2018. The research comes from anonymized shopping data in 2018.

The TV-only category was the biggest, with 30.6% of U.S. adults making changes. Internet-only was next at 25.9%, followed by phone-only, 22.4%; internet/TV, 8.3%; internet/TV/phone, 8.2%; internet/phone, 2.4%; and TV/phone, 2.1%.

Nearly 40% say the primary reason was price considerations.

For TV switching, the report confirms that cord-cutting played a big part. But traditional pay TV service changes were also a factor.

“Streaming TV services contributed to the majority of these purchases, which is unsurprising given the recent growth in cord-cutting,” says the report.

It added: “Despite this [traditional[ cable TV and satellite TV accounted for at least 37% of purchases and an additional 37% indicated that they subscribed to cable or satellite TV in addition to streaming services.”

Research shows over 20% purchased from at least two categories of home services.