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More than a fifth (21%) of U.S. broadband households with a connected electronics device are using it for streaming media, up from 12% last year. Moreover, usage of connected gaming consoles and DVRs for streaming media has decreased, and it has only increased modestly for connected TVs, meaning much of the increase is coming through dedicated streaming players.

“That’s a substantial [nearly double] increase,” Barbara Kraus, director of research at Parks Associates, tells Ma ...read more

As live TV viewing continues its decline, so-called over-the-top video continues to grow, according to the study TV Everywhere and the New World of OTT by Parks Associates.

Global OTT video service subscription revenue will top $19 billion in four years from about $9 billion last year, according to the study.

More than half (57%) of U.S. broadband households already subscribe to an OTT video service such as Netflix or Hulu Plus. And like most things IoT related, this is ...read more

The rise of cord-nevers is a real threat to the pay-TV industry, but the number of cord-cutters is growing, too.

Similar findings from two research firms illuminate the changing nature of consumers’ relationship with their cable cord. For starters, Parks Associates reports that 10% of U.S. broadband homes have snipped the cord to cable TV, with 25% having done so in the last 12 months.

These cord-cutters are using online video resources to get their entertainment fix ins ...read more

God bless early adopters. They pay the huge prices for items the rest of us aren’t so sure we need or want. The color TV! PCs and iPads. Cell phones the size of a loaf of bread! Their early confidence or just sheer excess cash made life better, or at least damn different. Out with the new. In with the newer!

Which brings us to over the top content providers. There are so many of them that you can make yourself silly trying to remember why one of them might be better than the ...read more

In related news, about 10% of broadband homes say they want to increase to even faster high-speed services in the next year, according to a study from Parks Associates. Meanwhile, about 11% of pay TV homes downgraded their pay-TV service in the last year, about even with those who upgraded.

Nonetheless, Parks also found that overall pay-TV penetration among homes with broadband has dipped from 87% in 2011 to 85% this year.

These figures seem to underscore the role that h ...read more

Nearly a quarter of consumers who subscribe to pay TV made changes to their subscriptions over the past year. But that news isn’t as bad as one might expect.

According to Parks Associates, of those who made changes to their service, 11% cut or downgraded their packages -- but 9% upgraded their subscriptions to include more channels, premium channels or some sort of new technology, like a DVR.

“We’re seeing a lot of folks making changes to their packages,” Brett Sappingto ...read more

Lest pay-TV providers start thinking that their hotshot over-the-top rivals have it all, consider this latest tidbit: OTT services are dealing with churn, too. Big-time.

About 85% of U.S. broadband households subscribe to an OTT service, and in the last year about 4% of U.S. broadband homes pulled the plug on Netflix, comprising 9% of the Netflix customer base. Meanwhile, a massive 7% of broadband homes nixed Hulu Plus in the last year, wiping away about half of its subscrib ...read more

Parks Associates noted last week that like cable’s Playboy Channel of the past, OTT services come and go pretty quickly; the churn can be profound. Parks found 9% of Netflix’s subscribers quit, a reasonable amount of churn. But half of the Hulu Plus subscriber base bolted, no doubt why Hulu is adding a lot more “plus” to its content even as it drops that part of its name.

There are smaller OTT services. The number of people who have quit one or more of them is equal to 60% o ...read more