Viewers Only Watch 10% of Pay-TV Channels: Nielsen (usatoday.com)

Chances are if you have cable, satellite or telco-delivered TV service, you aren't watching all the channels in your package. Heck, you probably aren't even watching half of the channels you pay for. Global information and measurement company Nielsen has conducted some research and found that viewers are actually watching, on average, only about 20 of the 200 channels they pay for. What this means is that a majority of us watch less than 10% of the channels we pay our cable, satellite or other provider for. USA Today reports: Back in May 2014, viewers watched 10.6% of the 197 channels they said they paid for, Nielsen's TV Audience Report found. A year later, viewers watched 9.6% of the 208 channels they got. This year, viewers also watched 9.6% of the 206 channels on their pay-TV service. That doesn't mean customers are unhappy with their service. "There is a jump between 'I'm not watching all the channels I pay for' to 'I'm not going to pay for more channels than I watch,'" says Glenn Enoch, senior vice president of audience insights for Nielsen. "What we do know is that people who have skinny bundles are lower-income than the average, so this is more about household income than viewing behavior." Pay-TV companies need to experiment, for sure, because other consumer behaviors in the Nielsen report suggest traditional TV viewing by those under 35 continues to fall, says Colin Dixon, analyst and founder of nScreenMedia.

Comments

Cable Packages, Duh

[Strider-]

Given that they force you to buy 8 channels of dreck just to get the one channel you want, it's not surprising. One of the many reasons why I cut the cord.

Re:Cable Packages, Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It is Not the Cable Companies.
The Content providers demand they take packages or they can't get the few channels they actually want.
Or You want.

Re:Cable Packages, Duh

[Strider-]

And hence why people are only watching 10% of the channels they're paying for.

Re:Cable Packages, Duh

[Wycliffe]

That's kind of their business model. ESPN costs $7 a month (or whatever), and they give you 15 other channels for free along with it. If they didn't give you those channels, ESPN would still cost $7. Same deal with whatever channel you value.

I'm ok with $7/channel. I'm also ok with a monthly minimum of $20 or something similar. What I'm not ok with is a $40 base package with none of the channels I want and then having to pay an extra $40 per month to get the 2 channels I do want. That's not $7/channel. That's $40 per channel when I have to pay $80/month to get the 2 channels I really want. It makes even less sense when we are talking directv and dish where assuming I already have the dish, the cost of them providing me a single channel is effectively free. They would be much better off to get rid of half of the channels and only offer channels that generate them a large revenue via either people willing to pay for them or shopping channels, ad revenue, etc...

Re:Cable Packages, Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you care? As long as you get what you want for a price you are willing to pay, what difference does it make if you also get something else?

Because we're being forced to pay for crap we don't want.

"Just pretend the crap doesn't exist and you're paying more for the few channels you want", you might argue

Problem is, by requiring that I pay for the crap channels, more of the crap will be created because the producers, by being paid, are mistakenly led to believe that their product doesn't suck. I resent that. I want the crap that nobody actually wants to pay for to wither and die so that nobody is forced to pay for it anymore.

Re:Cable Packages, Duh

[PsychoSlashDot]

That's kind of their business model. ESPN costs $7 a month (or whatever), and they give you 15 other channels for free along with it. If they didn't give you those channels, ESPN would still cost $7. Same deal with whatever channel you value.

If that was true, I'd still like an option for "pay $7 for just ESPN without the free channels", so I could express that I don't want them, free or not.

Almost cut the cord

[geek]

If it wasn't for my wife wanting to watch The Bachelor the second it comes on I would have cut the cable a long time ago. I literally watch 3 channels and most nights not even that.

I really can't stomach whats on TV these days. I know I'm older and my tastes have changed but what I see on TV these days is just uninteresting, overly political correct and frankly the actors seem to really suck. On the other hand when I see stuff from 20 years ago the same can be said, but at least then it was cheap.

Netflix is really no better either. The choices are slim, the shows are mostly junk and the prices will eventually climb to the same as cable, and/or add advertisements. It is bound to happen.

On the Web

[dcollins]

Meanwhile, I only tend to visit about 20 of the 1 billion sites on the World Wide Web (about 0.000002%), and yet here I am paying full price for my Internet access.