Cable TV viewership is getting hammered as consumers flock to streaming services like Netflix, with numbers from Nielsen showing a 12 percent decline in the first three months of 2015.
The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau concluded at a trade group meeting last week that 40 percent of third and fourth quarter declines in viewership can be attributed to consumers opting for Internet-based streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and Hulu.
"We believe the U.S. television industry is entering a period of prolonged structural decline, caused by a migration of viewers from ad-supported platforms to non-ad-supported or less-ad-supported platforms," Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger
told The Wall Street Journal.
CNN Money reported Wednesday that 4 in 10 American households now subscribe to a streaming service. Netflix leads the pack, with 36 percent of households reporting that they subscribe. Amazon's streaming service is in 13 percent of U.S. homes, and Hulu Plus is in 6.5 percent.
Older demographics, which data shows are slower to adopt the new streaming technologies, are jumping on the bandwagon.
Viewers 50 to 64 years of age decreased traditional TV time by 72 minutes a week from 2012 to 2014, and increased their consumption of Internet-based videos by 22 minutes.
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