‘Cord-Cheating’ new consumer behaviour

Research from discovery platform specialist Digitalsmiths notes that the pay-TV industry talks frequently about cord-cutting and cord-thinning, but the firm suggests in its Q2 2013 Video Discovery Trends Report: Consumer Behavior Across Pay-TV, VoD, OTT, Connected Devices and Next-Gen Features, that while consumers are both cutting and thinning their pay-TV services, an equally large threat is what Digitalsmiths has coined ‘cord-cheating’.

This phenomenon, cord-cheating, refers to the growing trend by consumers to seek on-demand content from third-party services and OTT services, as an alternative to their pay-TV provider. These third-party video services include Netflix, Redbox Kiosk, Hulu and more.

Based on Digitalsmiths Q2 survey of over 1,850 consumers, cord-cheating isn’t the only threat pay-TV providers need to be worried about. The survey results also shed light on key industry topics around consumers’ TV viewing habits, their perception of pay-TV providers, and opinions of next-gen features such as personalised video discovery.

According to Digitalsmiths, the results prove the competition facing pay-TV providers is coming from all angles now. Of survey respondents:

• 68 per cent of smartphone and tablet owners have not downloaded their pay-TV provider’s app.
• 35 per cent have a subscription to a OTT service
• 22.1 per cent regularly use a third-party pay-per-rental service
• 73.8 per cent never purchase from their pay-TV provider’s VoD catalogue