Despite the launches of dozens of TV Everywhere offerings in recent years in the U.S. and Canada, few consumers appear to know about these offerings yet.

In the latest study conducted by Parks Associates, just 26% of U.S. consumers said they knew that their pay TV provider offered multi-screen video service. Although this figure is up from 18% a year earlier, almost three-quarters of consumers are still not aware that they can access video content on multiple devices.

Brett Sappington, director of research for Parks Associates, blamed the low consumer awareness mainly on a lack of marketing by cable operators and other pay TV providers. Speaking on a Cable Show panel here this week, he said many providers "really didn't want to go to market until they knew that it was running. It was kind of a slow start for many."

Further, Sappington said many pay TV providers haven’t promoted their multi-screen products very much because they don’t make any money from them. He noted that some pay TV executives have told him they prefer to spend their advertising dollars promoting services that directly produce revenue. He further added most pay TV providers initially crafted their multi-screen offerings to fend off competition from such aggressive over-the-top (OTT) video players as Netflix. But now, most pay TV providers are beginning to figure out how to monetize multi-screen video, particularly on mobile screens. "This is a building full of people asking how the hell am I going to make money on mobile screens," he said.

According to the Parks study, once video subscribers learn about TV Everywhere, they frequently tap into it. The study found that 15% of all consumers, or about 60% of those aware of multi-screen video, said they actually use it now. This figure is up from 11% in early 2012.

Sappington said multi-screen video viewers are typically several years younger than other cable customers, are more likely to have children and tend to own more Web-connected consumer electronics devices. TV Everywhere users are also much more likely to subscribe to premium channels, spend more money on premium services and spend more time overall watching video, he said. "These are people that just love video,” he said. “In essence, they are cable's best customers. They love video from every source, and one of the things cable provides have is a lot of content."

Sappington advised cable operators to study how much TV Everywhere subscribers watch on-demand programming. He argued that operators could use VOD on multiple screens to generate more revenue. "While TV Everywhere itself may not be monetized in some way, a lot of that [VOD] spending may be optimized" with multi-screen, he said.

From the article, "CABLE SHOW 2013: TV Everywhere invisible to many consumers." 

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