Cutting the cord – turning to online options
Today’s U.S. online TV users are mostly from the younger generations, with nearly two in three adults aged 18 to 34 years using connected television devices on a daily basis in 2022. Their reasons for signing up for streaming video services are clear – content, convenience, and no or less ads are of high importance to these consumers. Online TV formats are gaining more and more enthusiasts, and the phenomenon of cord-cutting developing is seeing people turn to alternative methods to catch up with their favorite shows. In 2021, there were an estimated 47 percent of U.S. TV households without a traditional TV subscription and about 50 million non-pay TV households, a figure that is forecast to increase to nearly 70 million by 2026.Key players in the online TV industry
The market leader of the U.S. vMVPD industry is Hulu Live, with around 4.5 million subscribers at the end of 2022. However, while YouTube TV provides the most channels, namely 79 as of December 2022, Hulu made 73 channels available on its platform. AT&T’s DirecTV Stream and FuboTV followed in the ranking. All four services provide major U.S. television channels such as ABC, CBS, and Fox. Traditional pay TV subscribers have certainly moved to online TV channels and vMVPDs have gained more and more customers within the past years. While the top five online TV providers increased their subscriber base by over seven percent in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the previous quarter, the number of subscribers of the largest pay TV providers have constantly declined recently.
