CHICAGO—Results of a December 2018 survey released this week by Waterstone Management Group paint a rather dire picture for the cable TV industry: 59 percent of subscribers nationally have cancelled their plans and another 29 percent are considering it.

“I think it is pretty obvious that cable TV is going to go away, at least in the form that we’ve known it,” says Andy Kerns, creative director of Digital Third Coast and primary researcher on Waterstone’s cord-cutting survey. ”I think the story right now is about how quickly it is happening.”

Idaho registered the highest percentage of people who have cut the cord at 72 percent, followed by Kentucky at 70 percent, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona at 69 percent and South Dakota at 68 percent.

The states with the lowest percentage of unsubscribes include Virginia at 51 percent, Alabama and Massachusetts at 50 percent, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and Connecticut at 49 percent, Mississippi at 47 percent and New Jersey at 36 percent, the survey found.

Seven states had too few responses to be included in the analysis, according to Waterstone. They included Louisiana, Alaska, Montana, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming and North Dakota.

Although the survey didn’t examine why people are cutting the pay TV cord, Kerns identified price and original content as likely reasons. “Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services were initially competitive on price,” he says. “But they have also been investing in an incredible amount of original content. That seems to have accelerated this battle with traditional cable.”

The survey also did not ask about the efforts of traditional pay TV providers to preserve subscribers by offering their own SVOD services.

For the survey, Waterman contacted 5,000 people age 18 to 69 across the United States via Mechanical Turk, an Amazon-powered survey platform. Respondents were paid to participate.

More information is available on the Waterstone Management Group website.

Two year old YouTube TV said it will be available in the top 100 television markets in time for the Super Bowl.

YouTube TV said it is launching in 95 markets on Wednesday, with more to come shortly.

The virtual MVP has been stressing that subscribers can watch their favorite sports events and has been a sponsor of the World Series and the NBA Finals.

“Just in time for the Big Game, you can now pair your heart’s desire for buffalo wings, chips and dip, and potato skins with the full experience of YouTube TV. That’s exciting news for living rooms, cord cutters, and cord-nevers from Bozeman to Gainesville, Anchorage to Yuma, and Erie to Topeka,” Ben Moores, program manager for YouTube TV said in a blog post.

“So prep your game day buffet, get ready for some memorable commercials, and kickback and enjoy the award-winning cable-free live TV service people love. We’re excited and committed to continue making YouTube TV the live TV experience tailor-made for you. And to all our new neighbors and members—welcome to the family,” Moore said.

YouTube TV offers more than 60 networks, including signals from local broadcast network affiliates stations and cable cable channels.

YouTube costs $40 a month. One virtual MVPD competitor, Hulu + Live announced on Wednesday plans to raise its price to $44.99 a month.

LOS ANGELES—As the audience for diginets grows, so do their programming offerings. And diginets’ audiences are growing, make no mistake. While the nets—also known as multicast networks—got their start due to the availability of spectrum and extra channels when high-definition television came online, they have grown their businesses due to the unexpected rise of so-called cord-cutters and cord-nevers.

Instead of subscribing to expensive cable packages, cord-cutters, or people who abandon their cable subscription, and cord-nevers, or those who’ve never subscribed to cable in the first place, figure out other ways to watch television. One way that is growing in popularity is pairing inexpensive over-the-air antennas with over-the-top streaming subscriptions.

For example, a user could put an antenna on his house and then subscribe to advertising-supported Hulu for $7.99 per month, thereby creating a virtual cable package composed of over-the-air linear broadcasters, including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW, as well as multicast networks, such as MeTV, This TV, Antenna TV, Cozi TV and many more.

The share of U.S. households that acquire their TV signals via over-the-air antenna increased to 20 percent—or about 24 million homes—from 16 percent from early 2015 through the end of 2017, according to Parks Associates data from March.

“If you put yourself in the shoes of someone who can’t afford or chooses not to subscribe to cable or satellite, an entertainment option with a free price point becomes popular,” Katz Networks President and CEO Jonathan Katz said. “It’s a pairing that has organically happened as consumers have combined these two platforms into their own bundle.”

In August 2017, The E.W. Scripps Co. acquired the 95 percent of Katz it didn’t already own, including four multicast networks, Bounce, Escape, Grit and Laff, and subscription streaming service Brown Sugar, for $302 million. With the additional cash infusion, Katz has been able to accelerate its programming acquisitions.

For example, in November, Bounce acquired all seven seasons of Shonda Rhimes’ “Scandal” from Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International, which it began airing in primetime on Monday, Nov. 12.

Katz also has acquired Disney’s “According to Jim,” to premiere on comedy-focused network Laff in 2019, joining “Home Improvement,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “That ’70s Show,” “The Drew Carey Show,” “Night Court,” “Spin City” and more.

On Jan. 1, 2019, female-focused Escape is adding the first 12 seasons of “Law & Order” and every episode of “Boston Legal” to a programming lineup that also includes “Without a Trace.”

And Western network Grit will add Warner Bros.’ movie library of Westerns to its schedule.

Bounce also is the first diginet to expand into original scripted series and movies, Katz said.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, it premiered holiday movie “Stone Cold Christmas,” a modern and female-driven take on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” On Monday, Jan. 7, it will premiere half-hour series “Last Call,” starring “Empire’s” Charles Malik Whitfield as an ex-NFL player who opens a comedy club. “Last Call” joins a slate of original series that includes “Saints & Sinners,” “Family Time” and “In the Cut.”

NETTING NOSTALGIA VIEWERS

While the Katz networks are growing quickly, the highest-rated and best-distributed diginet continues to be Weigel Broadcasting’s MeTV, which airs nostalgia programming such as “Charlie’s Angels,” “Big Valley,” “Bonanza” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.” In the coming months, MeTV will launch its first original program, which it is producing in-house.

Besides MeTV, Weigel offers diginets Heroes & Icons, Movies and Decades. MeTV was one of the first diginets to launch and continues to offer nostalgia fare, along with competitors such as This TV, Antenna TV and Cozi TV.

In September, Weigel launched Start TV in partnership with the CBS-owned stations. The network airs scripted crime dramas that target women, such as “The Closer,” “The Division,” “Early Edition,” “Family Law,” “Joan of Arcadia,” “Medium,” “Profiler,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

Start TV already has done well enough that it will be nationally rated by Nielsen come December. In January, it will add five shows to the schedule, including “The Good Wife” and “Crossing Jordan.”

“We continue to schedule dramas with women in leading and significant roles,” Weigel Vice Chairman Neal Sabin said. “That’s one of the reasons we think the network has resonated so well with women. The network was correctly positioned at the right time.”

Another network that got its start largely as a nostalgia net, NBCUniversal’s Cozi TV, is starting to program more recent series. On Jan. 1, it will launch sitcom “The Office.”

“It’s a bold, innovative show that has proven to be rewatchable and has such a fan following,” Cozi TV Senior VP Meredith McGinn said.

Cozi airs classic sitcoms in primetime blocks, having found that viewers stick around for them. During the day, it airs dramas such as “Murder, She Wrote” and “Little House on the Prairie.” The diginet is available in more than 90 million homes and in 82 percent of the U.S.

The flip side of the Cozi coin is Spanish-language diginet TeleXitos, which launched in December 2014 and offers classic English-language series and movies dubbed in Spanish. So, U.S. Hispanics who enjoyed shows such as “Miami Vice” and “Law & Order” when they were growing up in their home countries can enjoy those shows again in their native language and with their families. TeleXitos just debuted “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” also dubbed in Spanish.

“The beauty of this network is that it offers viewers another option, something else to watch,” TeleXitos Senior Director Barbara Alfonso said. “Our brand is not nostalgia, it’s action-adventure.”

To that end, TeleXitos also programs movies, also dubbed in Spanish, and often packages them to serve as cross-platform promotion for other NBCUniversal interests.

For example, last summer TeleXitos aired the “Jurassic Park” movies in Spanish on “prehistoric Fridays” just as NBCUniversal was rolling out global blockbuster “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.” This holiday season, TeleXitos will offer “Legends of the Desert,” featuring such franchises as “The Mummy” and “The Scorpion King.”

GETTING SPECIFIC

Beyond the nostalgia networks, niche channels offer specific programming targeted at distinct audiences, such as Cooper Media’s Justice and Quest networks. Justice programs true-crime series targeting women 25 to 54, while Quest offers reality shows geared toward men, such as “Ice Road Truckers” and “MythBusters.” Because diginets are most often watched by cord-cutters and cord-nevers, these networks offer such viewers shows they can’t get because they are only available with a linear pay TV subscription.

“What we did when we built Justice, and then Quest three years later, we looked at what the options were for viewers across cable and streaming platforms,” Cooper Media VP of Strategy and Distribution Brian Weiss said. “The true, screaming needs, as far as we were concerned, for over the air was crime. There’s a huge, loyal audience for crime, and there was nothing on broadcast that was 24/7 true crime.

“Fast-forward three years later, if you look at Nielsen trends across cable, broadcast and streaming media, there’s nothing really available on broadcast or Netflix and Hulu that falls into the category of male-oriented factual entertainment,” he continued. “It felt like a nice niche for us to fill that no one else has touched.”

Another niche diginet is Fremantle-Media’s Buzzr, which packages the company’s nostalgic game shows, such as vintage “Family Feud,” “Supermarket Sweep,” “Password” and many more. Earlier this year, it added “Celebrity Name Game,” hosted by Craig Ferguson, after it had completed its three-season syndication run.

“We’re all running shows that tap into some sort of nostalgia or some sort of niche audience,” Buzzr General Manager Mark Deetjen said. “Nobody’s really doing any serious first-run content, nobody’s buying first-run sports. We’re all trying to figure out the economics that this business can support. From that standpoint, we’re all in the same boat.”

Buzzr, which is in 88 million U.S. homes, was just added to Pluto TV, which is available as an app on Roku, Apple TV and Sony Connected TVs, as well as on the Android and iOS platforms and via its website. It will soon join Samsung’s TV Plus package.

Buzzr also has just started working with partner networks on promotional efforts. For example, on Nov. 25, Buzzr aired a marathon of season one of the “Great Christmas Light Fight,” before the show’s new season debuted on ABC on Nov. 26.

“We’re tiptoeing into the pool here with ABC,” Deetjen said. “We want to show that we are bringing value to the table, too.”

The diginet business model continues to be powered by direct-response advertising—when a consumer has to call a 1-800 number to buy the goods or service advertised—but it’s evolving into a hybrid model, with more general-market advertisers buying spots on some of the bigger, nationally rated networks such as MeTV and Bounce. With more than a quarter of diginets nationally available and nationally rated, they offer a value proposition to brands.

Diginets combined with OTT services also offer a value proposition to consumers.

“For a consumer, whether they are watching a screen on their phone or a screen on their wall, they are just watching TV,” Katz said. “This resembles the early days of basic cable and it’s a tremendous value for consumers.”

While the TV business already has seen an alarming number of consumers go over-the-top to get their TV programming, a new study says even more subscribers would cut the cord if the knew they could still get live programming, particularly sports.

According to a white paper from Telaria and Adobe, called "Inside the Minds of Cord-Cutters and Cable-Keepers," consumers lack awareness about the live streaming content that is available to them.

Among the consumers the report labels “cable keepers,” 20 percent don’t know how they would access live TV without a cable subscription.

“Despite steady declines in subscribers, cable still dominates viewership,” the report said. “The primary reason people keep the cord is the perception that only a linear connection can deliver live television content (42 percent). The second and third most common reasons are the desire to have a lot of channels (34 percent) and the fear of losing favorite networks (32 percent).”

Long term, sports and other live events may be reason enough to keep traditional pay TV. The report found that 30 percent of cable keepers said they would cut the cord if they knew they could live stream all of their favorite sports, events, and news.

[Read: Cord-Cutting Pace Accelerates As Viewers Seek Premium Programming, Says EMarketer]

The streaming world appears to be mystifying to cable keepers, with 55% saying that they are are confused by their cord-cutting options.

“Despite the barriers, almost half of cable subscribers have or are considering cutting the cord,” the report said. “This is especially true among Millennials, who outpace older segments in cord-free status. One in three cable subscribers would definitely cut the cord if they could live stream their favorite sports, events and news, and an additional 40% would consider it. Sports fans are even more likely to consider cutting the cord if they could live stream programming.”

The study found that the top reason for cord cutting were that cable was too expensive (73 percent), that everything was available via streaming (36 percent), that there were too many channels on cable (36 percent).

To the cost-conscious, two ways of accessing content have become more mainstream: password sharing and digital antennas.

The study found that 16 percent of respondents said they use someone else’s password from a network or provider to authenticate an app on a device. Another 21 percent share their passwords with friends and family.

More of the live streamers--70 percent said they were satisfied with the monthly price they paid for service, compared to 40 percent for cable-keepers.

SAN JOSE, CALIF.—A group of companies including developers of antenna and hardware/software technologies have created a new marketing coalition to make it easier for consumers to view over the air broadcast with streaming services.

In the announcement of its formation last week, the companies, which include Antennas Direct, Hauppauge, Nuvyyo, Pixelworks, Plex GmbH, Resonian, and Shenzhen Geniatech cited the complexity cord-cutters face when trying to combine OTT/streaming services with free over-the-air local broadcasts.

“As a growing number of consumers abandon traditional cable and satellite subscriptions to gain increased control over content selection and the associated cost of video entertainment, they are often faced with added complexity as well as limited or overpriced access to local broadcast TV channels,” they said. “The genesis of FlexVU is a mutual end-goal of helping consumers “select the most seamless and high-performance cord cutting solutions, including the ability to access TV content from anywhere with a connected display device.”

[Read: Cord-Cutting Pace Accelerates As Viewers Seek Premium Programming, Says EMarketer]

As part of its initiative, the coalition said it would be advancing what it termed “a broader ecosystem under a newly recognized and industry-supported brand.”

Along with offering so-called “skinny bundles”—lower cost OTT services which target cord-cutters—several consumer electronics vendors like DISH and TiVo have made recent attempts to integrate OTT and OTA. Earlier this year, DISH launched “AirTV” an over-the-top, over-the-air service that gives customers access to dozens of over-the-air broadcast channels across multiple devices inside and outside of the home. Last week TiVo introduced its “Bolt OTA for Antenna” which combines OTT and over-the-air signals, delivering four tuners and a one terabyte hard drive capable of recording 150 hours of HD programming. The company describes the new box as a an “upgrade” to its “Roamio” DVR, which targets cord-cutters and has been available for four years.

Likewise, FlexVU member Nuvyyo offers its Tablo device that features an OTA tuner that provides DVR-type services to over-the-air viewers, as well as the ability to stream OTA signals to home Wi-Fi setups.

The coalition defined five elements that make up the FlexVU initiative—TV antenna, TV tuner, transcoder, software for the user interface and a DVR that allows consumers to view content on any device anywhere. It has also launched a consumer education portal www.flexvu.tv, which includes specific product and component recommendations, testimonial videos from FlexVU partners and useful links to tools, such as a Channel Finder to help consumers determine what local TV channels can be access based on their zip code. In addition, the FlexVU Web site has a helpful animation that provides an easy to understand overview of the key benefits and messages of the FlexVU initiative.

The monthly Comcast bill arrived earlier this month and it was $28 higher with no services added. Time to cut the cable, the TV cable anyway.

The first task had nothing to do with technology, TV shows or saving money. It was convincing my spouse that cutting the cable was a good idea. After some gentle persuasion, she consented.

The next step was purchasing two Rokus for streaming. They installed easily and without a hassle. I also subscribed to DirectTV Now, which I mistakenly thought would give me unlimited live network TV, but I later discovered that’s not always the case. Irritatingly, networks and other content providers often make you jump through activation hoops the more you watch. Worse, we could not get full or live PBS programming.

So it was back to the future with over-the-air TV (OTA) using an antenna or what we Boomers used to call an aerial. I acquired a ClearStream FUSION Amplified UHF/VH HDTV outdoor antenna with a 60 mile range from AntennasDirect.com, the go-to people for antennas and advice about how to install them. The company provides a great video about to install it EXCEPT they omit talking about grounding the unit. More on that later.

The $100 unit (full disclosure: I acquired mine as a review unit through TVtechnology.com editor Tom Butts) is well built and easy to set up. Running a new coaxial cable is the biggest chore, but if you’re lucky with your antenna location, you can use existing cables installed by the cable provider. Higher is better for reception, which AntennasDirect can help customers with based on the location of area TV towers relative to your address.

I chose to run a new cable given the location of the unit on my roof. So drilling through a wall and running the cable outside and up to the antenna and around a couple of corners was the biggest chore. I pulled in 16 channels after running the required scan on my TV. The pictures are crisp and clear except NBC cuts out a good deal of the time.

Then I realized I had to install a ground on the mast and the cable. But with a house sitting on ledge next to a river in Maine, there was no way I could sink an 8-foot rod into the ground nor did I want the 10 gauge uninsulated ground wire dangling down the side of house beneath the antenna.

So I took the antenna off the roof and moved it into my attic, an atrociously hot, dangerous and dirty place to work accessible only by hatch. I hoped putting the antenna a dozen feet higher from the rooftop location would compensate for moving the antenna indoors. Indeed, the attic location picked up 16 digital TV channels including the three major networks, Fox and PBS with some pixilation especially with NBC, but not enough to matter much.

A few caveats: my unit purports to be good for more than one TV although AntennasDirect support told me reception takes a hit with that approach. Bear in mind, they want to sell more antennas. They also told me longer cable runs (don’t go more than 100 feet) affects reception adversely.

My OTA journey has been a success given from what I’ve learned and the satisfaction from cutting the TV cable. I also saved $100 a month in process, but still am beholden to Comcast for Internet. OTA and streaming are still somewhat of an adventure, but clearly are the future if not the present.

John Dodge is a freelance journalist living in West Newbury, Mass. 

A new forecast from eMarketer finds the loss of traditional pay TV subscribers in the United States is accelerating as the number of people who have cut the cord and continued without cable, satellite or IPTV service will climb to 33 million this year.

That’s some six million more cord-cutters than eMarketer predicted in July 2017, the company said.

[Read: Global Online Media Usage To Surpass TV, GroupM Says]

“Most of the major traditional TV providers [Charter, Comcast, Dish, etc.] now have some way to integrate with Netflix,” said eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Christopher Bendtsen.

“These partnerships are still in the early stages, so we don’t foresee them having a significant impact reducing churn this year. With more pay TV and OTT partnerships expected in the future, combined with other strategies, providers could eventually slow — but not stop — the losses.”

At the same time, the popularity of OTT services like YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu continues to grow. An increase in the number of original programs and demand for multiple services is driving the growth, eMarketer said.

“Consumers increasingly choose services on the strength of the programming they offer, and the platforms are stepping up with billions in spending on premium shows,” said Bendtsen.

The availability of live TV packages delivered over the top without the need to install hardware or incur associated fees are also a factors, he added.

More information is available on the eMarketer website.

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The number of U.S. TV homes with at least one internet-connected TV device continues to swing upward, Leichtman Research Group (LRG) found in a new study.

Some 74% of those homes have at least one such device in a category that includes smart TVs, standalone streaming players, streaming adapters and sticks, and connected Blu-ray players, LRG said in the study, "Connected and 4K TVs XV," which based findings on a survey of 1,202 U.S. TV homes.

The 2018 results are up from 65% in LRG’s 2016 study, 44% in 2013, and a mere 24% in 2010.

LRG said 29% of adults in U.S. TV homes watch video on a TV via a connected device daily, up from 19% in 2016, 6% in 2013, and 1% in 2010.

Tying into a broader trend that has seen younger viewers gravitate to OTT-delivered video, that group currently over-indexes in the 18-34 age group (43%), compared to 33% who are 35-54, and 12% among those 55 years or older.

Per the study, about 29% of all TVs in U.S. homes are connected smart TVs, up from just 7% in 2014. Among homes with any connected TV device, 57% have three or more, with a mean of 3.8 devices per connected TV home.

Across all TV homes, the mean number of connected TV devices is 2.8, versus a mean of 1.7 pay TV set-top boxes per U.S. TV home

“Connected TVs, along with Netflix and other SVOD services, are among the biggest factors driving change in the video industry over the past few years,” Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG, said in a statement. “In a short period of time, connected devices have allowed an increasing number of consumers to easily watch SVOD and other video options on the same TV screen as traditional pay-TV and broadcast offerings."

LONDON—Cord-cutting is spreading beyond the U.S. borders with declines in pay TV subscriptions touching 13 other markets, says a new report from market analyst IHS Markit.

In addition to the U.S. subscription falloff, the report, “Global Cord-Cutting Tracker 2017,” identifies declines in Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Israel, Venezuela and Ireland.

Six of the 14 markets experiencing subscriber losses also recorded declining revenue last year. However, the U.S., Brazilian, Mexican, Swedish, Japanese, New Zealand, Norwegian and Venezuelan markets were able to compensate for subscriber losses by increasing what they charge remaining customers, according to the report.

[Read: Paywizard: Cord-Cutting Trend Offset By 'Pay-TV Polygamists']

For example, the U.S. loss of 3.3 million pay TV subscribers last year was offset by upsells and price increase that ended up generating more revenue for pay TV operators, says IHS Markit.

2017 saw the first pay TV subscription decline in Latin America since 2002. While cord-cutting contributed to the loss, economic difficulties played an important role in the subscription losses in Brazil (down 617,000) and Mexico (down 192,000). In Venezuela, 16,000 subscriptions were cancelled as the country’s financial crisis worsened, says the report.

Overall, North America suffered the biggest-ever decline in annual pay TV subscriptions with 3.5 million customers evaporating. Since 2012, the region has seen a decline of 7.1 million subscribers, says the report.

By way of comparison, Netflix and other OTT subscription services have seen an increase of 101.3 million subscribers for the same period. More than 26 million OTT subscriptions were added in 2017 alone.

The sting of cord-cutting for pay TV providers extends beyond cable TV. Satellite TV subscription services in several regions are suffering, too. In both North and Latin America last year, satellite TV subscriptions declined more than any other platform. In North America, 1.8 million satellite pay TV subscriptions disappeared, while Latin America experienced a decline of 882,,000, says the report.

[Read: Millions Flee Pay-TV; Revenues Slide, Say Researchers]

One attempt to stop the bleeding has been the launch of standalone streaming services by pay TV operators that compete with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other OTT services. However, these services typically cost less than tradition pay TV subscriptions, have a lower average revenue per user and are worth less to providers, says Ted Hall, director of research and analysis for TV and video and IHS Markit.

Over the next five years, IHS Markit forecasts a net decline of 8.5 million pay TV subscriptions in North America as cord-cutting continues. However, Brazil pay TV subscriptions are expected to grow as the nation’s economy strengthens.

OTT subscription growth is expected to outstrip that of pay TV everywhere except for the Middle East and Africa for the period, says the report. Overall, 409 million OTT subscriptions will be added around the world through the end of 2022, with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for nearly 66 percent of the growth, the report says. 

LONDON—The BBC's chairman David Clementi has said the corporation faces a huge challenge with the “smartphone generation."

Speaking at the Voice of the Listener and Viewer spring conference, Clementi said more work has to be done to capture the 16 to 34-year-old audience: “This age group represents our biggest challenge."

“They watch less TV than older people and listen to less radio. They are the smartphone generation and their view of the world is shaped by social media. It is a generation with which we have to work hard to remain relevant.”

[Read: Are Smartphones The Future Of TV News?]

He said of younger viewers: “This is the generation for whom the one thing they can’t afford to lose is their smartphone. Their whole life revolves around it.”

Clementi also warned the Corporation's ability to fund original British content has decreased.

He said that as commercial broadcasters were hit by “dwindling advertising revenues … the volume and breadth of British content that British audiences rely upon is now under real threat."

“It is not limited to drama. It is about home-made content across all genres,” he told the audience, adding that “there are some serious challenges ahead."

NEW YORK--Amplifying a growing trend, 21 percent of U.S. pay TV customers say they subscribe to an online video service from their MVPD, up from 10 percent a year ago, according to a Parks Associates study.

Parks Associates, which based the study on a survey of 10,000 heads-of broadband households in the U.S. in Q3 2017, said the rise is attributed to the increased number of partnerships between pay TV providers and OTT players, citing Comcast’s support of Netflix on the MSO’s internet-capable X1 set-top box platform as a prime example.

[Read: All ‘Major’ TV Networks To Launch OTT, Direct-To-Consumer Services By 2022: TDG]

Comcast, of course, is far from alone in this trend, as Dish Network, Altice USA as well as TiVo’s and Espial’s various cable operator partners have also woven OTT content with traditional TV. That’s also going to be a focus for Charter Communications’ new Worldbox platform.

The study, 360 View: Access and Entertainment Services in U.S. Broadband Households, also found that pay TV subscription rates dropped from 86 percent in 2015, to 77 percent in late 2017. And while 84 percent of pay TV subs get a service from a traditional cable, satellite or telco TV service provider, nearly 18 percent of pay TV homes get a package from an OTT TV provider.

“The number of ‘Cord Never’ households (which have never had pay-TV service) is increasing slowly, but those who have sampled pay TV are testing new alternatives,” Brett Sappington, senior director at Parks Associates, said in statement. “The percentage of those open to cancelling pay TV or minimizing their monthly spend on pay TV is also up. This ongoing shift is affecting all aspects of service design, promotion, packaging, and pricing. As a result, operators are having to reassess their technology and content investments as well as their partnerships and go-to-market strategy.”

This article originally appeared in TV Technology sister publication Multichannel News.