PwC: Number of young-adult pay-TV subscribers dropped 6% in one year

For the pay-TV industry, the steady drumbeat of recent bad news from research companies continued Wednesday, with PricewaterhouseCoopers releasing a report showing that the number of young adults 18-24 with cable, satellite or telco video subscriptions is now 71 percent, down 6 percent from 2013.

The news is better for adults 50-59. But the check could be in the mail for older adults, too, with 58 percent of that group in the U.S. subscribing to Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), up from just 19 percent in 2013. Fully 71 percent of adults 25-34 now have Netflix, up from 51 percent last year.

PwC's report, titled Feeling the Effects of the Videoquake, polled 1,024 U.S. consumers via online survey.

For the cable industry, their long-term responses were disturbing. For example, 91 percent of respondents said they see themselves subscribing to pay-TV in one year, but only 61 percent said they're likely to do it in five years. And only 42 percent said they see themselves as pay-TV customers 10 years from now.

For more:
- read this Wall Street Journal story

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