Deloitte Projects Huge Pay-TV Surge
For those who love to watch television, simply having basic cable is not enough. With over-the-top (OTT) providers beginning to offer strong original content—like Netflix’s House of Cards and Amazon’s Alpha House—diehard TV junkies are signing up for more and more subscription-based programming. And according to Deloitte, that trend will continue into the foreseeable future.
Currently, Deloitte reports, more than 2.5 million households in Canada have multiple subscriptions to content providers. That number represents an increase of more than 150 percent since 2012. What’s more, the firm predicts that by year’s end that on a global scale, the amount of homes that pay for content from two separate providers—like traditional cable and Netflix, for example—will have increased to 50 million.
“As more and more content owners, aggregators and platforms such as cable, telecom and satellite providers make their content available online through subscription, the number of Canadian households with multiple subscriptions will rise,” explains Duncan Stewart of Deloitte. “So far, at least, the cord-stackers are running far ahead of the cord-cutters. Households will want the best quality and an abundance of content which will have an impact on bandwidth and put upward pressure on monthly download allowances.”
These days, the television viewing experience is changing. People who watch television still do so in the classical sense: at home, on the couch, surrounded by family, watching the device mounted on their wall or standing on furniture. But because of the rise of the mobile device, many people are watching content on tablets while they are cuddled up under blankets in bed or on their smartphones while they’re commuting to the city on a train. OTT providers understand this evolving dynamic perfectly, and because of that are uniquely positioned to meet the ever-changing needs of the consumer.