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]

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.

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.