What They Say
Parks Associates said that 55% of US pay-TV households see live sports coverage as an important part of their decision to keep Pay TV services.
Separately, a report on viewing of the Super Bowl last weekend said that 69% of those that watched used a SmartTV. 40% watched on Samsung sets, 21% had LG, 11% were with Vizio and Sony was at 8%.
Over half (53%) watched on their local CBS affiliate via their cable/satellite subscription, whilst 32% watched via an over-the-air TV antenna connection and 14% streamed via CBS All Access or CBS Sports.
What We Think
Although the report said that SmartTVs were used, it’s not clear to me that the ‘Smarts’ in the TV were used.
It has always seemed to me that sports are essential for PayTV subscriptions. Of course, for a long time, streaming really couldn’t support the bandwidth of large numbers of viewers streaming the same content at the same time, but that seems to have changed. For example, in the UK, Amazon Prime has been streaming multiple simultaneous soccer matches without apparent major issues.
CBS had some issues with the Super Bowl streaming feed, but claimed that restarting the app solved the issue.
I have often wondered whether a way for TV set brands to kickstart paid subscriptions to content services might be by offering exclusive global sporting events. However, I guess, however much sport regulators love cash, limiting access to only some set owners might cause political trouble. (BR)
