In the early 2010s, cord cutters were often seen as a fringe minority out there. Now over half of Americans no longer pay for cable TV or other traditional pay-TV services.
According to a report from the Insider Intelligence, 47.6 million American households are now cord cutters. They also report by the end of 2023, 54.4% of all Americans will no longer pay for a traditional cable TV service.
“Streaming services have evolved to offer many advantages over cable and satellite packages,” said Paul Verna, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “They’re more affordable despite having raised prices, they provide more flexibility for stopping and starting service, and they increasingly carry programming that used to exist only on legacy systems, like live sports. Also,
as they mature, streaming services are building libraries of must-see, digital-only content. This gives viewers more and more incentives to cut the cord and sign on with digital video providers.”
“The availability of key content, specifically live sports, on streaming platforms will drive cord-cutting in the coming years,” said Oscar Bruce, forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Thursday Night Football moved from Fox to Amazon Prime Video in 2022. NFL Sunday Ticket will switch from DirecTV to YouTube when the new season starts this fall. As more marquee programming migrates online, we expect more households to cut the cord in favor of cheaper digital alternatives.”
According to the report YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime are still the top 3 most popular streaming services. Growing fast is a group of newcomers like Disney+, Peacock, and Paramount.
Increasing the growing amount of content available online vs. cable TV is drawing even reluctant streamers into the world of cord cutting.