Consumer Spend on Non-Pay-TV Home Video Halved Between 2014 and 2018, Says Parks

Average revenue per user for standalone pay-TV service declined 10 percent from 2016 to 2018 to $76, blogged Parks Associates Thursday. Consumers’ self-reported spend on non-pay-TV home video entertainment dropped 30 percent per month over the past seven years to just over $20 at the end of 2018, after peaking at nearly $40 in 2014, Parks said. Spending on packaged video media has steadily declined since 2012; movie theater spending fell by 50 percent from 2014 to 2018, it said, while spending on internet video is the only category to hold steady since 2014 at $8-$9 per month. With subscription online video the only growth category for consumer-paid video entertainment beyond pay TV, operators are taking different approaches to leverage the trend, said analyst Brett Sappington. Comcast and Dish are offering subscriptions to third-party over-the-top video services and integrating them into their interfaces to serve as content aggregators; others, including AT&T and Dish, are expanding their online reach, introducing virtual MVPD services, Sappington said. Twenty percent of U.S. broadband households don’t have pay-TV service, said Parks.