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

[Ol Olsoc]

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.

Lets see the utter pile of shit there is available:

Some 50 shows where sassy women sit around and yap and fight with each other.

Another bunch where people sing more or less the same music to win prizes.

Stupid dancing programs where professional athletes always win over some star or presidential candidates tramp daughter because they're professional athletes.

Shows where yuppies pretend to be rednecks and encourage pedophilia

Shows where superior people pop dozens of larvae out of a clown car vagina, and stand up for one of them being a pedophile.

Strange shows with really weid looking guys with weird looking hair and stuff, but with wives who are oddly attractive.

Shows where peope who never met each other sign a contract to marry each other.

Marriage saving shows for kooks

Must be a million shows about people in Alaska.

"Science" shows where humans are stupid, and apparently every advancement in history was made by aliens.

My better half watches some old reruns and court TV, so I see the ads for the weirdo shows.

Then there are the commercials Sue this person sue that medicine company, Suee everyone. If you win an annuity in your suit, there's another company that will give you a lump sum if you give tehm the annuity.

So I'm left with cartoon channel, and The Science channel, and HBO.

Otherwise, its Youtube science and space/airplane vids. I can't be the only one who watches less than 1% of their crap.

Re:Cable Packages, Duh

[swalve]

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.

Re:Cable Packages, Duh

[Wycliffe]

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.

I have no problem with them including a shopping channel or other junk channel with the channel I want but what I really want is to be able to pay $5 per channel for the channels I want. If they want to give me a bunch of other channels with the hope that I'll watch some commercials, I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is paying $20 a month for a bunch of channels I don't want and/or having to pay $100/month to get the 4 channels that I do want. $20/month for 4 good channels should work out good for both of us but until then I will look elsewhere.

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.

Got a better deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, I watch about 97% of what I download. Plus shows from Netflix and Amazon.

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.

Re:On the Web

[amicusNYCL]

If you tried to sell internet "a-la-carte", the geeks would have you burned at the stake.

Yeah, and rightly so, because the internet is a huge network with virtually no barrier to entry, and anyone can publish content and anyone can consume whatever content is out there.

but don't try and sell TV as all or nothing, then you're screwing them over. Dumb fucks.

You want to use the internet model for TV? Great. One service with every possible channel available, no mandatory equipment rental fees, and then let provider companies compete on how many minutes you can watch per day or whatever for whatever price. If you want to make an analogy between the internet and TV, that's the analogy to make. Don't try to shove the internet into the TV box, that doesn't work. The reason why we love the internet model is specifically because it is better than the TV model. Don't try to make the internet like TV, try to make the old-fashioned TV model like the internet. It's going to go that way eventually once older people die and younger people are raised without ever spending childhoods sitting for hours in front of the TV every night. Instead they'll have spent hours on the internet every day. If you want those people as customers then it's time to throw out the old models and figure out what people actually want.

I'll be happy to pay money to consume TV shows the way that I want to consume them. In the meantime, I get them without paying the broadcast companies and I don't feel bad at all for the broadcast companies. They haven't earned my sympathy because they insist that I do things their way, they don't understand what I want. Until they figure that out, I'm not worried about them getting my money because I know that creative people will continue to make shows I want to watch. I would sooner buy some merchandise that goes directly to the creators than give money to a broadcaster trying to tell me how to watch everything.

Re:Can't watch TV, it's all pro Hillary

[Berkyjay]

Trump, is that you?

Re: Can't watch TV, it's all pro Hillary

[orlanz]

Right, wonder what your back in the days were... Decades of gangs, prohibition, mafia, corrupt jails, corrupt police departments, insider trading, corporate fraud, war on drugs, welfare fraud, Medicare fraud, Ponzie schemes, housing bubble, stock bubble, too big to fail, etc.

Most of the criminals involved there weren't even touched. Some were even bailed out by taxpayer funds. Or did you mean before 50 years ago... When entire sections of our society were treated less equally?