Skip to main content

Decline of "Passive" Entertainment Consumer

Attracting early-adopters is critical for vendors of new consumer electronics devices, and the profile of the informed progressive user is changing, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

Early technology adoption is no longer constrained by income, education, ethnicity, or social status. As a result, a larger percentage of young adults than in the past consider themselves to be early-adopters.

"Whether it is TV Everywhere initiatives, over-the-top video services, Web-to-TV devices, or 3D digital televisions, the market success of each new innovation will be dependent on attracting early-adopters," says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst. "Yet, many of the characteristics that defined early technology adopters in a pre-Internet world no longer apply."

In-Stat's research identifies that U.S. early-adopters are much more likely to: Subscribe to premium pay-TV channels; Two-thirds get at least one premium channel; Over 50 percent receive HBO; Subscribe to a DVR service; View VoD content; View fee-based on-demand movies; Purchase pay-per-view content; Subscribe to fee-based sports content; Spend more than 5 hrs per day viewing video content.

I would add one key evolutionary characteristic to In-Stat's list -- early-adopters believe that the traditional pay-TV offering is becoming obsolete and prohibitively expensive, that's why they've embraced a Neflix subscription service.

Netflix subscribers manage their personalized content Queue based on trusted adaptive recommendations, and consider the traditional one-size-fits-all linear TV channel model to be archaic, by comparison. Therefore, the "passive consumer" era is doomed to a rapid decline.

In-Stat's market study found the following:

- By 2013, nearly half of total U.S. households will have an adult that considers themselves to be a leading-edge or early-adopter of technology.

- In-Stat recently developed new end-user segmentation that identifies Power, Social, and Passive consumers. Segmentation is based on the number of different Internet activities and the frequency that they are performed.

- Over the next five years, Internet power-user households will double in number, and nearly two-thirds of U.S. broadband households will be power or social users.

Popular posts from this blog

The Subscription Economy Churn Challenge

The subscription business model has been one of the big success stories of the Internet era. From Netflix to Microsoft 365, more and more companies are moving towards recurring revenue streams by having customers pay for access rather than product ownership. The subscription economy cuts across many industries -- such as streaming services, software, media, consumer products, and even transportation with the rise of mobility-as-a-service. A new market study by Juniper Research highlights the central challenge facing subscription businesses -- reducing customer churn to build a loyal subscriber installed base. Subscription Model Market Development The Juniper market study provides an in-depth analysis of the subscription business model market landscape and associated customer retention strategies. A key finding is that impending government regulations will make it easier for customers to cancel subscriptions, likely leading to increased voluntary churn rates. The study report cites the