Despite reports to the contrary, the broadcast television audience may be keeping over-the-air viewing alive and well, a study from Nielsen suggests. Broadcast-only households grew 4 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2014.
"The number of broadcast-only households in the US has hovered between 11 and 11.2 million for the last three years. However, the first quarter of 2014 showed a big change. The number increased to over 11.6 million, an increase of 3% over Q4 2013 and 4% over Q1 2013," analyst Colin Dixon of nScreen Media wrote in a post reporting the results.
Broadband households seem to be influencing the growth in OTA viewing, Dixon noted.
"The number of homes that are broadcast only but also have broadband access is also on the increase. In Q1 2013, there were 5.3M. This number has grown 12%, to 5.9M," he said.
Nielsen began tracking broadband-only homes in the fourth quarter of 2013.
 |
 |
|
Top: Television distribution sources. Bottom: Cable/satellite homes with Internet access. (Source: Nielsen Cross Platform Report, June 2014) |
For more:
- see this blog post
- see Nielsen's report (reg. req.)
Related articles:
Over-the-air television is dead despite Aereo loss, analyst says
NAB report says over-the-air is gaining on pay TV
With Aereo offline, how will online video viewers access broadcast TV?