Audio Video News

Seventy-nine percent of U.S. consumers still subscribe to pay TV, but that number is dwindling as cord-trimmers, cord-cutters, and cord-nevers cut into the base. That’s the news from PricewaterhouseCoopers in its report “Videoquake 3.0: The Evolution of TV’s Revolution.”

Twenty-three percent of existing subscribers trimmed in the past year, scaling back service in favor of a skinnier bundle. Another 16 percent cut the cord altogether.

Most ominous for the cable industry, consumers ages 18 to 24 are 67 percent more likely to never pay for pay TV at all—and that figure rises to 78 percent for adults in their fifties. At 78 percent, the number of consumers subscribing to streaming services is only a point less than the pay-TV audience. They shell out for Netflix (65.1 percent), Amazon Prime (34.2 percent), Hulu (16.3 percent), and HBO Go (14.9 percent).

PWC’s research included an online survey of 1,200 adults, focus groups, and monitoring of social media.