Most TV subs won’t scale back under pick-and-pay rules: survey

Most Canadians who subscribe to TV services do not intend to scale back their TV packages after the CRTC starts requiring $25 skinny-basic packages and pick-and-pay options next year, according to a new survey. Survey results released Thursday by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing's Canadian branch (CTAM Canada) — based on polling done by Charlton Strategic Research Inc. — found that 57 per cent of respondents who have TV subscriptions said they will either maintain their current TV packages or add additional channels after regulatory changes next year. New regulations take effect in March that require basic TV packages to be offered for no more than $25 a month, and in December customers must be given the option of picking channels on a one-by-one basis beyond that basic package. The survey found that 33 per cent of TV subscribers plan to switch to a skinny-basic package and then add channels from there, while 10 per cent said they will switch to skinny-basic with no additional channels. Getting rid of TV service completely was not among the optional answers respondents could choose for this question. However, another part of the survey found that 54 per cent of TV subscribers are satisfied with what they have, 34 per cent are planning to reduce their number of channels, seven per cent are planning to cut their subscriptions entirely and five per cent intend to add channels. Looking at how non-TV subscribers will respond to next year's regulatory changes, almost one-third said they will adopt a TV package after the new rules take effect. Eighteen per cent said they will create their own TV packages, 11 per cent said they will get skinny-basic and add channels, while three per cent said they will take a skinny-basic package with no discretionary channels. Sixty-eight per cent of this group said they will continue without TV services. Awareness about pick-and-pay television was at 53 per cent in this latest survey, down from 57 per cent a year before when the CRTC's Let's Talk TV process for reviewing the TV industry was underway. A majority of respondents had favourable views of both pick-and-pay TV and skinny-basic, but more so for the general population than for their own households. The survey had 92 per cent saying pick-and-pay is a good or very good idea overall in general, and 86 per cent answered this way in relation to their own households. Eighty per cent said skinny-basic packages were a good or very good idea overall, and 68 per cent felt this way with regard to their own situations. When asked what channels are considered "must have," the most commonly named channel among English-speaking respondents with a subscription TV service was BCE Inc.'s CTV, mentioned by 32 per cent. That was followed by CBC/Radio-Canada, which was identifiedby 26 per cent of this subgroup, and Shaw Communications Inc.'s Global TV, at 25 per cent. TSN and Sportsnet (owned by Bell and Rogers Communications Inc., respectively) as a combined category for sports networks was also cited by 25 per cent. CTAM Canada said the survey was taken online of 3,155 respondents 18 years old or older, and results based on the whole sample have a margin of error of 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. A spokesman for the association said the polling was done in June of this year. — With reporting by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca and editing by Shruti Shekar at sshekar@thewirereport.ca

Most TV subs won’t scale back under pick-and-pay rules: survey

Broadcast | November 19, 2015

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