TDG: Connected TV users more likely to snip cord

Adults with connected TVs are "twice as likely" to cut the cord--or at least shave it a bit--as their counterparts with dumb TVs, the latest research from The Diffusion Group (TDG) has found.

The Diffusion Group pay tv

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According to the report, "Net-Connected TV User Dimensions," a huge majority of adult broadband users currently have "little or no interest in cancelling their traditional TV service." But, the researchers said, MVPDs should be concerned about a trend among those with connected TVs to reconsider the idea of subscribing to traditional pay TV.

The report showed that 8.8 percent of connected TV users are "highly inclined to cancel their current pay TV service in the next six months compared with only 3.5 percent of non-net connected TV users," a TDG press release said.

TDG Co-founder and President Michael Greeson said the report supported TDG's earlier suspicions about how connected TV users view their pay TV services.

"For years, the casual relationship between the two behaviors has been questioned and rightly so," Greeson said in the press release. "Yet TDG has argued for several years that this relationship would develop over time and hit an important landmark moment of sorts in 2013."

That moment, he said, is evident in the fact that connected TVs are becoming more common in the market and connected TV owners are becoming more unstable as pay TV subscribers.

"Now the pay TV industry and prominent analysts are coming to terms with the fact that those with access to online video sources on their TV are more likely than their counterparts to be reconsidering the value proposition of incumbent pay TV services," he said.

Looking at the statistics from another direction, TDG published statistics indicating that 54.8 percent of connected TV users are still "highly uninclined to cancel" their pay TV services compared to 65 percent of non-connected TV users.

"The data does demonstrate a notable correlation between the two phenomena … (that) we expect to grow more strongly in the next few years," Greeson concluded.

For more:
-The Diffusion Group issued this press release

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