Cost of TV service driving cord-cutting: Angus Reid

A new report from the Angus Reid Institute indicates that the cost of services is the main driver behind the choice of Canadians who have gotten rid of their traditional TV service subscriptions. The Angus Reid polling analysis released Thursday said despite the current ‘skinny’ cable package offerings on the market, 72 per cent of cable subscribers say their TV services are still too expensive. While the poll makes nods to streaming services cutting into the TV market, noting Canada has the third-highest percentage of subscribers to Netflix in the world, it highlights cost as a main factor pushing the cord-cutting trend. “Though streaming services provide a viable replacement for cable or satellite TV for many, they’re not – in and of themselves – the driver of the decision to cut the cord,” pollsters Shachi Kurl and Ian Holliday wrote. “More than half (52 per cent) of those who have cancelled their television service say they did so because they felt they weren’t getting good value for their money. A smaller number (39 per cent) did so because they were already getting most of the movies and TV shows they wanted to watch online, though there is likely significant overlap between these two groups.” The report also said one-third cancelled their TV subscriptions because they felt they couldn’t afford their monthly cable bills. The report said that 30 per cent of Canadians have either cut the cord or never subscribed for home cable services. Those numbers line up with figures previously released by the Media Technology Monitor. Another third of those sampled who currently subscribe to TV services say they will either “definitely” or “probably” cut the cord and switch to over-the-top (OTT) services. Of those who said they’re unlikely to cancel their cable subscriptions in the near future, 16 per cent said they’ve already cut back their TV package and 27 per cent are thinking about it. The Angus Reid poll was an online panel survey that was in the field from Sept. 19 to 25, drawn from a representative sample of 1,500 Canadian adults. Because it’s an online survey, no margin of error can be assigned. It was self-commissioned by the polling company. It was released the same week as an analyst note from Scotiabank analyst Jeff Fan that says subscriptions to streaming services – mainly Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video, BCE Inc.’s CraveTV, and Quebecor Inc.’s Club illico – account for “approximately 46 per cent of total monthly TV subscriptions in Canada.” Fan also predicted that over-the-top (OTT) services will surpass traditional TV subscriptions by 2019-2020. He wrote that the Canadian OTT surge has led to households reducing the number of channels in their cable packs rather than cord-cutting, and that sports content has been a major factor limiting cord-cutting. He said the report was based on CRTC data as well as Scotiabank’s own estimates. Fan said he doesn’t expect regulatory relief for the industry any time soon, with little political appetite for industry consolidation, an election in 2019 (governments will often not make major policy decisions in the last year of a mandate), a review of the country’s broadcasting laws concluding in 2020 and Ottawa’s decision to wait for G20 consensus before moving on any kind of new tax regime for digital tech giants. “Given the challenges, we believe the TV industry needs help. We see potential relief down the road, but believe that it will take time to materialize and we wonder if it will be too late,” he said in the report, written with Matthew Hofmann. But there is an opening when it comes to Canadian content production – especially local content, the report said. “The percentage of Canadian produced content on Netflix Canada and Amazon Prime is roughly three per cent, which is low compared to many other markets.” — With reporting by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Cost of TV service driving cord-cutting: Angus Reid

Broadcast | October 18, 2018

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Cost of TV service driving cord-cutting: Angus Reid

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