Cord Cutting is Mainstream

Leichtman Research Group rolled out their latest consumer research on household viewing habits today, and the results are telling:

74% of all U.S. households have a subscription video on-Demand (SVOD) service from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and/or Hulu – up from 64% in 2017, and 52% in 2015.  Among those that have an SVOD service, 69% have more than one of these services – up from 51% in 2017, and 38% in 2015.  Overall, 51% of U.S. households now have more than one SVOD service, an increase from 33% in 2017, and 20% in 2015.

In 2007, when we launched the NewTeeVee blog, I cut the cord. A dozen years later, it is pretty clear that cord-cutting has become as mainstream as La Croix, Shake Shack, and Uber. So, it is no surprise that everyone from AT&T to Disney to News Corp is starting to roll-out their over-the-top services. It remains to be seen if they can survive life without cable subsidies in the future.

In the report, Leichtman Research points out that “51% of ages 18-34 stream an SVOD service daily – compared to 34% of ages 35-54, and 15% of ages 55+.” In other words, young people aren’t keen on the cable bundle as much. That said, if people of a certain age can keep DVDs playing for a long time and keep paying for AOL dialup, who knows how long cable companies can pilfer consumer wallets.

Aside: My former colleague Janko Roettgers, now a senior corresponded for Variety, is the OG cord cutter. He was the guy who first used the phrase “cord-cutters” in our office.