Though it seems like streaming TV services are getting more diverse and robust by the week, Parks Associates today said the number of people who consider them a viable replacement to their cable or satellite subscriptions is actually shrinking.
According to the consumer research firm's "All Eyes on Video" study, the percentage of broadband-connected homes that would consider canceling their pay TV subscriptions in favor of online video has steadily declined for the last two years.
In 2008, 11% of U.S. broadband-connected households said they would consider dropping cable/satellite to get their video content only from online sources. By early 2009, that number dropped to 10%; and now in the beginning of 2010, it's dropped down to only 8%.
Even then, Parks suggests, online video won't cover the needs of these users.
This is because that small percentage of broadband-connected homes amounts to about 5.5 million households who Parks says are the most die-hard media consumers. These households watch far more online video, and rent far more DVDs than the national average. As a result, these homes will have to pull content from multiple sources, Parks says.
"Nobody is going to rely on online video alone," John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates said in a statement today. "Households likely to cancel their TV services are going to use a mixture of online video, free-to-air broadcasts, and DVDs, including rental services such as Netflix and Redbox."
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
