One-Quarter of US Households Live Without Cable, Satellite TV Reception – IOTW Report

One-Quarter of US Households Live Without Cable, Satellite TV Reception

ABC-7: NEW YORK –(BUSINESS WIRE) New findings from GfK show that US TV households are embracing alternatives to cable and satellite reception. Levels of broadcast-only reception and Internet-only video subscriptions have both risen over the past year, with fully one-quarter (25%) of all US TV households now going without cable and satellite reception.

The research, from GfK’s 2016 Ownership and Trend Report from The Home Technology Monitor™, shows that 17% of US TV households now rely on broadcast-only (a.k.a. “over-the-air” or OTA) reception, up from 15% in 2015. Another 6% say they only use Internet services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or YouTube and do not have traditional broadcast or pay TV reception at all; this compares with 4% a year ago.

Click here to access an infographic based on this study

TV households with a resident between 18 and 34 years old are much more likely to be opting for alternatives to cable and satellite; 22% of these homes are using broadcast-only reception (versus 17% of all US households), and 13% are only watching an Internet service on their TV sets (versus 6% of all TV homes). Overall, 38% of 18-to-34 households rely on some kind of alternative TV reception or video source, versus 25% of all homes.

On the other hand, households with at least one resident age 50 or above have higher rates of subscribing to cable or satellite services. More than eight in 10 (82%) have some sort of pay TV subscription, versus 75% of all US TV households. more

22 Comments on One-Quarter of US Households Live Without Cable, Satellite TV Reception

  1. I pulled the plug on my cable in the early 90s and no TV either. It was a waste of time when I was in my 30s and now that I’m in my 60s, my time is just way too valuable. The hour or so I spend online everyday gives me plenty of time to stay informed.

    If something that looks good comes along like The Sopranos, Deadwood, Breaking Bad…I just get the DVDs.

  2. I watch TV at work when I am getting my coffee in the morning. So, 3 minutes a day. I cut the cable almost 4 years ago when Brian Ross and Steponallofus tried to implicate the Tea Party in the Aurora theater shooting. I told the guy on the phone that the stuff they were sending into my home was evil.

  3. I refuse to give up my HGayTV. All those fabulous designers creating stunning….junk. But selling it to people for big money. How can I give that up?

    Honestly, the only thing I’d miss is Golf Channel and sometimes Hist and Science. The rest is a waste of
    Money.

  4. Oh yeah?
    Well, I terminated my cell phone, land-line, TV, cable, internet, radio, CB radio, HAM radio, electricity, water and sewage.

    How am I writing this, you ask?

    I am not…I am in your head…I am the iowntheworld apparition.

    Forever in limbo from when iowntheworld was mercilessly terminated. 🙂

  5. My three 30+ yo children do not have cable or satellite. They use other sources Amazon, Netflicks and such. They, and most of their freinds have no use for the other.

  6. I don’t even have teevee!

    If I had it, this is what I would watch:

    –Fox News
    –Sunday-morning talk shows
    –cop dramas (especially the cold-case ones)

  7. Ditched everything except DVD player around 2003 and got internet instead. Have never regretted it. Gave up on TV proper when bunny ears broadcast went away, and it was a waste even then. Internet is all we have, need and want.

  8. I gave up cable awhile back, haven’t missed it. Just have internet. Use Netflix when I want to watch what I used to on cable. 44 OTA channels in Milwaukee area. About 8 are Spanish or shopping (including the shopping channels at the station where I work). About once every two months, there looks like a good deal on shopping channel, but I resist buying so far 🙂

  9. I like the survival shows like Alone and Dual Survival and Mountain Men
    I have sirius radio so I can listen to Fox shows
    I avoid Home and Gayness shows, but honestly I have cable because of the Westerns
    Not much else worth watching

  10. We got rid of cable, HBO and all that sh*& years ago. We are fortunate to be intelligent enough to stream off the Internet to our big screen TV with the antenna in the window (little square thang, ever see one?), get free movies with Google Prime, and thousands of movies from my local library system of about 80 suburban libraries (each having about 200 dvds). Not to mention an occasional movie on YouTube free. Yep. It’s a different world, with lots of alternatives. For me, I got everything from Fox News to Drudge to IOTWReport to CNN to Alex Jones, and about fifteen more in my favorites. I don’t watch the local news, it’s too depressing, but the wife keeps abreast for us. Newspapers? What’s a newspaper? LOL

  11. Gave up cable/satellite ~20 years ago. Gave up broadcast TV ~10 years ago. Gave up DVDs ~5 years ago, with the exception of a few old series: MASH, Black Sheep Squadron, All in the Family, Hee Haw, etc.

  12. I love sports, so I stayed with Direct because it has the best sports packages. My kids switched to OTA/internet a couple of years ago, but they told me that for live sports programming cable or satellite is still the only way to go.

    But for that, I probably would have ditched cable/satellite a long time ago.

  13. we’re exclusively video on demand. No OTA no cable no satellite nothing.

    I actually pay a $10 a month penalty for the privilege of NOT paying for TV.

    Fiber optic internet, 10-15 megabit down 5 megabit up. As reliable as the sun.

    Netflix, youtube, amazon video, and all the “gray area” streaming sites that continuously pop up all the time that have ALL OF THE SHOWS within hours of their being broadcast, no commercial, high quality and free.

Comments are closed.