SAN CARLOS, CALIF.—The idea of a la carte Pay-TV offerings remains popular among consumers that took part in TiVo’s quarterly Video Trends Report, but the bill they’re willing to foot has taken a dive.
The latest Video Trends Report from TiVo covers Q4 2016, and in it 76.6 percent of respondents said they would like to only pay for the channels they watch, which is up 3 percentage points year-over-year. However, they want to lower the price that each individual channel would cost. The average price respondents wanted to pay per channel was $1.68/month, if that were to include the designated top 20 channels it would come out to $28.87, a 12.3 percent decrease quarter-over-quarter. TiVo’s report indicates that while the reason for this drop in desired price is unknown, the effect of OTT is a likely contributor.
Speaking of the top 20 channels, there is a new entrant into the top 10 most popular channels in a potential a la carte offering. While the major networks—ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox—still hold court along with Discovery Channel, History Channel, A&E, PBS and TNT, TBS was bounced from the top 10 in favor of FX. In addition, ESPN saw a drop in popularity, going from 44 percent of respondents wanting the network to 41.3 percent in Q4 2016.
Elsewhere in the report, the upward trend of TV Everywhere services continues. TiVo says that since 2012 it has seen a slow growth in the adoption of pay-TV providers’ TV Everywhere offerings, but there has been a more consistent growth over the last three quarters. In this most recent quarter, 49.1 percent of respondents said they are aware of their pay-TV providers’ app, the highest total since it has been recorded and a 2 percent growth since Q3 2016 (9.1 percent year-over-year). Similar trends occurred with app adoption and use, as 30.9 percent of respondents say they currently access the app and 61.5 percent use it on a weekly basis.
The TiVo survey is based on the answers of 3,100 respondents.
