5 thoughts on “Nearly 78 percent of American homes have broadband & 9 percent cord cutters”

  1. Did you read the Leichtman report? 9% have broadband but don’t have multichannel video. It says nothing about cord cutting. These households probably never had multichannel video in the first place. The dynamic that is occurring is that broadband adoption is still rising slowly while multichannel video has been flat. The facts are that the total number of multichannel video customers increased by 1,000 over the last two years, although there was a slight 0.275% decline of 278,000 customers over the last year.

  2. The question i would like answered is;

    What is the total percentage of cord-cutting homes combined with off-air only TV viewing (no broadband listed)? It would stand to reason that if you are a cord-cutter that you would also view free OTA TV (over-the-air).

    Anyone?

    Thanks,
    JCB

  3. It is hard to get a firm number on the percentage of homes using OTA only. Many of the studies are done by or for organizations that have a stake in the game which may skew the results. Usually it is a bias towards showing that OTA has become insignificant and the bandwidth used by television could be put to better use. I have seen figures anywhere from about 9% to as high as 14%. And of course there are many other households that may have another source of programming but still have a spare TV in other parts of the home they just use with an antenna.

    Personally I talk to more and more people who are very interested in what TV they can get for free and doing away with their ever increasing cable or satellite bill. A local TV antenna installer (who also sells satellite services) tell me they have put up more antennas in the last two years than they have in over a decade. I have personally helped around a half dozen people “cut the cord” and have more asking about it all the time.

    I find the majority of people don’t realize just how good OTA TV is today. If they have any experience with OTA TV (and many young people don’t) they recall only getting a handful of fuzzy channels that by today’s standards would be considered unwatchable. In reality most urban/suburban markets it seems you can expect anywhere from 20 to 50 or more crystal clear channels (including sub-channels) with a reasonable antenna set up correctly. I am in a small city in Ohio and get about 40 channels rock solid. Using that and a TiVo DVR I find we have all the entertainment we have time to watch. I believe I have seen that of the top twenty shows on television the majority of them are still on broadcast TV. Certainly there are some shows and sporting events you won’t be able to get this way, but you’ll find the $1,000.00 or so per year that you save can make it worth it for most people.

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