Cord cutting: Numbers up, and accelerating as more turn to web

A new study from the Convergence Consulting Group says some 800,000 households in the U.S. decided to cut the cord to cable, IPTV and satellite operators, choosing instead to go over the top for content to their computers.

As a stand-alone number, 800,000 can seem pretty big--or pretty inconsequential. It depends on your point of reference. There's little doubt 800,000 with a dollar sign is a pretty big salary; without a dollar sign it's a pretty good number of followers on Twitter. It also looks like a pretty big number in a headline that says "800,000 households in the U.S. cut the cord."

But if you look at that 800,000 in the light of day, in the company of other numbers that make up the IPTV and cable industry, that 800,000 can quickly be explained away as insignificant, a rounding error, especially when it's a number that's cumulative over the past two years. With 101 million subscribers to cable, telco and satellite, that's less than 1 percent of the industry's customers who are opting out, a number that could be explained away by the economy, or simply as churn.

But Convergence is forecasting the number will continue to accelerate as more viewers turn to the web. It estimated 17 percent of the total weekly viewing audience currently watches one or two episodes of a full-length TV show online, up from 12 percent a year ago, and that number is expected to hit 21 percent this year.

For more:
- see this TechCrunch article

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