Report: Most Cable TV Customers Willing to Switch Providers for a Discount

In a world marked by extreme competition and open efforts to lure each other’s customers, consumer loyalty to any product or service is low. Reiterating this fact, Strategy Analytics has announced a report entitled “Digital TV Customer Satisfaction: US Survey Results 2H'09,” which finds that more than two-thirds of American pay television subscribers would be willing to switch providers if offered a price discount of 20 percent or more.

 

Over the past year and a half, a gloomy economy and the growing prevalence of Over-the-Top (OTT) distribution have placed significant pressure on pay television Service Providers. The competition is very stiff, forcing the service providers to take up extreme measures to attract customers.

 

With 71 percent of the respondents claiming to be 'somewhat' or 'very' satisfied with their current digital television provider, the digital service providers have a little less to worry. Telco/IPTV (News - Alert) customers reported 95 percent overall satisfaction, compared to 78 percent for Satellite, and 67 percent for Cable. Also, very few customers felt that they were getting value for money.  

 

“The value-for-money result was perhaps the most important finding of this study,” noted Ben Piper, director of the Strategy Analytics (News - Alert) Multiplay Market Dynamics service, in a release. “It underscores a trend we have been seeing for the past 18 months: a growing number of customers are beginning to question the value of a “traditional” pay TV subscription in light of expanded “over-the-top” offerings, such as Hulu (News - Alert) and Netflix.”

 

The report finds that while Telco TV/ IPTV is expected to make impressive strides in the upcoming years the platform's success is certainly not a foregone conclusion.

 

The company recently revealed that touchscreen devices, with their large display size, are the next big thing in mobile Internet. The report, “Touchscreen Mobile Browsers: Best Practice Guidelines and Browser Evaluations,” utilizes benchmark evaluations of leading touchscreen browsers from Apple (News - Alert), Google, Microsoft, Nokia,Novarra, Opera and Skyfire. The report defined a set of practice guidelines pertaining to browser layout, navigation, zoom, bookmarks and presentation.