Skip to main content

Connected TVs are in 65 Percent of American Homes

According to the findings from a recent study, Connected TV devices are now in nearly two-thirds of all television households within the U.S. market. There are already more connected TV devices in U.S. households than there are pay-TV set-top boxes.

Leichtman Research Group (LRG) finds that 65 percent of American TV households have at least one television set connected to the Internet via a video game system, a smart TV set, a Blu-ray player, and/or a stand-alone device -- that's up from 44 percent in 2013, and 24 percent in 2010.

Connected TV Market Development Results

Among those with any connected TV devices, 74 percent have more than one device, with a mean of 3.3 per connected TV household. Those with a connected TV generally find them to be easy to use:

  • 70 percent of all with a connected TV agree (8-10 on a 1-10 scale) that streaming services like Netflix are easy to access via connected TV devices, while 12 percent disagree (1-3).

The LRG study also found that 77 percent of TV sets in pay-TV households have a pay-TV provider's set-top box, with a mean of 2.2 boxes per pay-TV household. Pay-TV subscribers tend to express little animosity toward set-top boxes:

  • Fully 20 percent with a pay-TV HD set-top box agree (8-10) that set-top boxes from TV companies are a waste of money, while 44 percent disagree (1-3).
  • 42 percent with a pay-TV HD set-top box agree (8-10) that set-top boxes from TV companies provide features that add value to the TV service, while 16 percent disagree (1-3).
  • 68 percent with 3 or more set-top boxes are very satisfied (8-10) with their pay-TV provider – compared to 54 percent with 1-2 set-top boxes.

Overall, there are more connected TV devices in U.S. households than there are pay-TV set-top boxes. Across all households (including those that do not have any of these), the mean number of connected TV devices per household is 2.1, while the mean number of pay-TV set-top boxes per household is 1.8.

These findings are based on a survey of 1,206 TV households throughout the U.S. market, and are part of a new LRG study.

Other findings from the LRG study include:

  • 83 percent of households with any type of connected TV device get a pay-TV service – similar to 81 percent with no connected TV devices.
  • 38 percent of adults with a pay-TV service watch video via a connected TV device at least weekly – compared to 48 percent of pay-TV non-subscribers.
  • 79 percent of all TV sets in US households are HDTVs – an increase from 34 percent of all TV sets in 2010, and 3 percent in 2004.
  • 33 percent of non-4K Ultra HDTV owners have seen one in use – up from 10 percent in 2014.
  • 25 percent of those who have seen a 4K HDTV in use are interested in getting one – compared to 9 percent of those who have not seen a 4K HDTV.

Popular posts from this blog

Connected Vehicles to Reach 1.05B by 2035

Every executive who has approved a connected product roadmap has made a quiet assumption: the network underneath it will still be there. That assumption is about to be tested at a scale the automotive industry has never faced. The global connected vehicle installed base is heading toward a billion units, and the cellular technology most of those vehicles depend on is scheduled to begin its retirement before the end of the decade. For automakers, fleet operators, insurers, and the telecom carriers that serve them, the question is whether the recurring revenue those services promise can survive a connectivity layer with a shorter life than the vehicle carrying it. How Scale Meets an Expiry Date Omdia research forecasts that the global connected vehicle installed base will surpass 1.05 billion units by 2035, up from 473.7 million in 2025. Few installed bases of any kind more than double in a decade, and this one signals that connectivity is moving from premium differentiator to baseline e...
Read more