More Pay-TV Subscribers Cutting Services Than Adding, Digitalsmiths Says

More pay-TV subscribers -- at 17.9 percent -- cut services such as premium channels or premium sports packages during Q2 than added such services (16.4 percent), Digitalsmiths reported Tuesday. Among pay-TV subscribers planning to make a change in their subscriptions over the next six months, roughly 7 percent plan to end the service -- roughly the same percentage as those who plan to switch to another provider, it said. Digitalsmiths said of those it surveyed planning to change their pay-TV subscriptions, another 3.7 percent plan to go to an online service or app and 31.8 percent are considering making some unspecified change. Digitalsmiths said about 50 percent of survey respondents planning to cut, change or switch pay-TV services in the next six months would stay if the provider added some functionality to make searches easier -- an increase of 8.8 percentage points year over year. Digitalsmiths said 77.2 percent of respondents are satisfied or very satisfied with their pay-TV service, relatively flat year over year. For those who are dissatisfied, the biggest reasons given were cost, followed at distant second and third by bad channel selection and poor service, it said. Nearly 77 percent of survey respondents said they wanted a la carte model, with the most-desired channels being Discovery, ABC, CBS, History Channel and NBC, Digitalsmiths said, saying average respondents' ideal bundles are made up of 19 channels. The average price that respondents want to pay is $3.60 per channel monthly, Digitalsmiths said. The amount of "cord cheating" -- pay-TV subscribers who seek on-demand video content from third party and over-the-top sources -- is growing, with 57.2 percent of respondents with pay-TV service going such routes, Digitalsmiths said. The biggest cord cheating option is with a subscription VOD service, it said. The survey was of 3,114 participants in the U.S. and Canada.