More Americans Are Paying For Broadcast TV

Despite the growth of free, on-demand entertainment options it paying TV customers appear to be growing. As PSFK posts, a new report by SNL Kagan shows that even though people purport to be moving away from traditional media sources such as cable and satellite, they are actually sticking with the familiar more than expected.

The New York Times explains in More Americans Are Paying for Television:

“Regardless, more people are paying for TV: 99.9 million at the end of 2009, up from 97 million at the end of 2008. The gain can be explained in part by the nation’s gradual population growth, but also by the enduring popularity of television in a fragmented media marketplace.

According to SNL Kagan, cable (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, among the companies in the category) lost a total of 500,000 subscribers between 2008 and 2009; satellite (DirecTV, Dish Network) gained 1.4 million; and telecommunications (Verizon, AT&T) gained 2 million. Cable providers still dominate, however, with 62.1 million subscribers, while satellite competitors have 32.7 million and telecommunications companies have only 5.1 million.”

If you add the numbers watching the various forms of Web TV, there is only growth in this media. How to explain these results? The Times concludes that we may seeing a gap between how people feel and how they actually behave.  This is not new. My psychology studies have found this gap in many areas. The Times adds that there is already a history of this gap in the television industry: it has been well established that Americans underestimate the amount of daily TV they watch.