Youth Won't be Served Much Longer by Pay-TV

14 Oct, 2014 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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If the 18- to 34-year-old demo is most desired by Madison Ave., marketers might rethink pay-TV as a means of reaching them. A new comScore study finds  that Millennials are 77% more likely to have never subscribed to pay-TV (“cord-nevers”), with 67% more likely to have ended their bundled channel TV subscription (“cord-cutters”).

At the same time, those between ages 35 and 54 are only slightly more likely to be “cord-cutters,” while respondents above 55 are less likely to have terminated the cable bill, according to a survey of 1,159 respondents online Aug. 21-28.

The research firm said younger generations are more likely to watch original series online, with 45% of them watching via the Internet, including 13% doing so exclusively. By comparison, just 17% of people age 55 and older watch at least some original TV series content online.

So where is the 18- to 34-year-old demo going for video entertainment? They’re going online and subscribing to either Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video or Hulu Plus.

comScore found that 49% of the demo subscribe to Netflix, compared with 32% among all respondents. About 25% of the younger demo subscribe to Amazon Prime Instant Video (19% overall) followed by 21% who prefer Hulu Plus (9%). In fact, 61% of all 18-34 respondents use SVOD.

As my 19-year-old daughter told me the other day: “Dad, Netflix has changed everything.”

Indeed, a third of Millennials’ time spent consuming original TV series programing online, with the majority via the computer or laptop. One in six Millennials said they hadn’t watched original TV programing on the TV in the past 30 days. 

About 32% of the demo streams video via a connected device to the TV, including Roku, Google Chromecast, Apple TV, while 25% watch video through a connected video game console or Blu-ray Disc player.

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