Pay-TV viewers express frustration with search

Pay-TV subscribers view content discovery in television to be inadequate to meeting their needs, according to the findings of new research.

The research, sponsored by Veveo, which specializes in semantic technologies aimed at making connected devices easier to use, reveals less than optimum content search and discovery has a negative impact on service providers.

The findings demonstrate that the inability of viewers to find the content they are searching for in an efficient manner is causing lost revenue for pay-TV operators as the time spent finding content is significant and takes away from viewing time.

Remarkable, the research found more than 85 percent of pay-TV subscribers surveyed said they turn off the TV without being able to find something to watch at least some of the time, the research found.

Other findings include:

  • more than 60 percent of users spend more than 10 minutes a day searching for content;
  • of those respondents, more than 10 percent said they feel they spend either a considerable amount of time or a lot of time looking for content;
  • price was the top reason for customer churn; product features was the second most prominent reason;
  • 75 percent of respondents said they favored having better search solutions from service a provider over having content recommended;
  • 60 percent said they would use voice-controlled search on their TVs if available;
  • more than 70 percent of respondents said they would consider switching their pay-TV provider to gain access to conversational interface technology.

Veveo’s research was conducted via a survey of 915 participants across the United States. Additional qualitative insights were gleaned from a series of focus groups and 1-1 interviews. Reports based on the results are available from Veveo.