Traditional pay TV companies sweating out the streaming video revolution got some solace in a recent report from Limelight Networks that claims consumers place more emphasis on pricing and quality when picking a video provider.
According to Limelight’s State of Online Video report, consumers are supplementing their traditional pay TV subscription with streaming services, rather than replacing them. Limelight said that while online video consumption is growing — consumers watch an average of six hours and 45 minutes of video online every week, an increase of one hour per week from last year — 62% of respondents worldwide pay for more video services in addition to their pay TV subscription, and said the top-two devices for watching online video are smart TVs (31%) and set-top boxes/ DVRs (18%).
Pricing is still important: More than half of survey respondents (55%) said that price increases would be the primary reason to cancel an SVOD service and nearly half (46%) said the same for their cable subscription. Quality of service also was a top priority, as 43% said rebuffering was their primary frustration, with 66% said they stop watching a video after two rebuffers and 60% claiming they would be more likely to watch a live sporting event online if it was guaranteed there would be no viewing delays.
Globally, people watch movies online the most, followed closely by TV shows and news. Young millennials (18-25) watch professionally-produced video and user-generated content on social media more than they watch the news and sports online.
Limelight said data for the report was collected by a third party and was based on responses from 5,000 consumers in France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States age 18 and older who watch one hour or more of online video content each week. The survey responses were collected from Aug. 1-12.
