Traditional, Streaming Sports TV Viewing Grows Overall, But Pay TV Subscribers Decline
- by Wayne Friedman , November 30, 2021
Although overall U.S pay TV subscriber homes continue to fall, regular sports viewers watching in homes with the traditional pay TV bundle are growing.
A new survey from Altman Solon, with analysis from MoffettNathanson Research, says there were 58 million sports TV viewing households in the third quarter of this …
Wayne, mixing and matching the results form different datasets is a risky business. Just because a survey projects a gain of 2.6 million "sports viewing homes" over a two- year period tells us nothing. The number, itself, is so small when compared to the total number of TV homes---122 million---that it could be interpreted as no change at all---or well within the margin of error inherent in any survey. Moreover, what about viewers---not homes?How much time did they devote to sports viewing? Despite it's issues, I'd rather see a Nielsen analysis based on meter findings and viewing records before I leapt to any conclusions about trends in sports viewing. Perhaps such data would confirm the MoffettNathanson interpretation---perhaps not.