Lower ARPU, Not Churn, is Big Subscription TV Issue

With 60 percent of 18 to 34 year-olds now regularly watching movies and TV shows online, are viewers abandoning subscription TV services? Not quite yet, according to Altman Vilandrie & Company and Research Now, conducted with 1000 consumers in July 2011.

Only three percent to four percent of consumers have “cut the cord,” cancelling their subscription service because online video meets their needs. What is happening is that subscribers are spending less on their services than they used to.

Twenty percent of consumers now say they are cord shavers, spending less on cable TV because of the convenience of online video. up from 15 percent only a year ago. Nearly 30 percent of those under 35 also say they are cord shavers. They are watching content on mobile devices more often and, on the whole, value live programming (sports, news, etc.) less

Almost 40 percent of paid online video adopters claim they save money by ordering fewer pay-per-view movies or subscribing to fewer premium channels, and more than 20 percent claim they were able to subscribe to a lower tier package with their TV provider.

Still little cord cutting