Who knew that a $24 accessory available through Amazon.com or Walmart could add so much diversity to the small screen?
A just-released Horowitz Research study finds that, as cable TV “cord-cutters” look for ways to stay connected to live and local programming, multicultural audiences are embracing over-the-air (OTA) antennas.
According to Horowitz Research’s State of OTA 2021 study, access to free, over-the-air culturally relevant content is important to Black, Hispanic, and Asian audiences.
Specifically, some 58% of Black TV antenna users note that they use the device to access channels superserving African American consumers. Additionally, some 35% of Black antenna users say they typically watch Black-geared content through their TV antenna.
The data are similar among Hispanics, which Horowitz calls “Latinx” antenna users; RBR+TVBR refrains from use of the term, which is not largely accepted in the Hispanic marketing and advertising industry.
According to Horowitz, about 6 in 10 bilingual and Spanish-dominant Hispanics say that having content in Spanish and/or Hispanic-targeted English-language content is important to them. Among bilingual and Spanish-dominant Hispanic antenna users, viewership of Spanish-language content from a variety of broadcasters, especially Univision and Telemundo, remains high, with about 3 in 4 Spanish-dominant and 2 in 3 bilingual Hispanic antenna users watching content from those two broadcasters through their antennas on at least a weekly basis.
While Horowitz indeed finds a content preference among these groups, it is perhaps a misinterpretation of viewing habits by multicultural households that is tied more to socioeconomic levels against the total population?
The data find that 21% of Black TV content viewers who do not subscribe to MVPD services and use an over-the-air antenna. That’s some 2.5 million Black consumers. But, it also suggests 8 in 10 Blacks have cable TV, once again demonstrating its resilience with an audience that has overindexed for MVPD subscriptions for more than a decade; a 2011 Mintel study offered this conclusion.
The data is a bit more favorable when looking at Hispanics, with one-third of the sample relying on over-the-air TV. Still, two-thirds are cable subscribers, once again raising the question of socioeconomic concerns shaping the study’s results.
There is, of course, another way to look at it, and it’s the more likely scenario of households saying goodbye to cable TV and embracing OTT services. With no other way to watch local TV, which is still highly valued among these consumer groups, they’re getting the digital TV antenna.
It’s a pattern that shows multicultural consumers are in step with the total market on cord-cutting, even with the high number of Black and Hispanic MVPD subscribers. Will that high number persist in the coming years? Perhaps. But that consumption could be shared with OTT, and OTA, choices.
The full State of OTA 2021 report provides analysis of U.S. TV content viewers and antenna users. The survey was conducted in October-November 2021 in English and Spanish among 1,600 TV content viewers (708 among antenna users). Data have been weighted to ensure results are representative of the overall TV universe.
