For the last several years, MVPDs have waged a war against broadcast television station companies seeking an increase in retransmission consent fees, arguing that the cost would be passed on to consumers, resulting in higher bills.
Absent from those conversations has been the suggestion of a la carte pricing. Now, a newly released report supports that idea, declaring that viewers “are paying for TV services they don’t fully use.”
The insights come from Inscape, which seeks to look into “the full extent to which TV viewers are abandoning traditional formats like cable and satellite for streaming platforms.”
Based on Inscape’s Q2 2023 TV Market Trends report, roughly 5% of U.S. cable/satellite households outright quit viewing content via their satellite and cable TV options during that three-month period. A “sizable portion” of remaining subscribers have cut their viewing time significantly as well.
But, is the data skewed? The time period Inscape looks at is from April 1 through June 30 — before the SAG-AFTRA and WGA East and WGA West work stoppages. Thus, it may be the most accurate look at consumer behavior for 2023.
Inscape calls these households that have sharply reduced their cable/satellite viewing time but have not fully cut the cord “Quiet Quitters.” And, they were more prevalent than full quitters in the second quarter.
Looking at U.S. cable/satellite households, Inscape found that 9% reduced their cable/satellite viewing by 75% or more when comparing Q2 2022 to Q2 2023 … but didn’t fully quit. Additionally, 8.4% of U.S. cable/satellite households had a drop of 50%-75% in cable/satellite viewing time year-over-year.
Why do these “quiet quitting” households retain their subscriptions in the face of such a dramatic pullback in activity? Although streaming has become the dominant source of overall TV viewing in the U.S., according to Inscape, U.S. households continue to turn to cable/satellite and antenna-based over-the-air formats for access to two key draws; live sports and news programming.
For companies such as The E.W. Scripps Co., Gray Television and Nexstar Media Group, mid-term and long-term riches are incumbent on live programming of the sort. And, recent investor communications has made it clear that with pro sports play-by-play, coupled with local news, consumer demand for free-to-air television will only keep MVPDs from attracting consumers.
That said, Charter Communications announced Wednesday that it will no longer sign up new customers for traditional wired cable TV services, instead giving them IP-delivered services over broadband internet. This follows a trend that also saw U-Verse customers get transferred to broadband-only delivery.
According to Inscape data, while streaming commands 56.5% of overall TV viewing time, that falls to 23.1% for sports and 14.7% for news. Cable/satellite/antenna, meanwhile, accounts for 43.5% of overall TV viewing time, but dominates in sports (76.9%) and news (85.3%).
“This quiet-quitting trend emphasizes the reality that not all TV viewership stats are created equal,” said Ken Norcross, VP of Data Licensing and Strategy at Inscape. “While overall viewership data suggests a broader movement between formats, closer examination of specific programming categories like sports and news illustrates how legacy formats remain viable options. Collecting accurate viewership data across these disparate formats requires a platform capable of a complete, holistic view of the entire TV landscape, which is what Inscape provides.”
