Americans Will Cut Cable for Internet TV in Near Future: Harris Interactive Survey

Around 77 percent Americans have watched a TV show on the Internet as compared with a traditional television, according to a survey by Harris Interactive (News - Alert).

However, around 30 percent of the U.S. adults are not keen to give up their cable television in favor of watching TV shows on the Internet.

More than 50 percent of those with cable would like to stop paying for cable, if certain stipulations are met, Harris Interactive said.

The recent Adweek/Harris Poll was conducted online between May 24 and 26, 2011, among 2,309 U.S. adults.

According to the survey, the future of TV and how Americans experience TV is changing significantly. The use of DVR systems, the increasing number of shows available online, and the expansion of services offered by companies like Netflix are driving these changes.

Around 50 percent of respondents said they watched a show on the Internet that they never previously saw on a traditional television.

The survey said younger adults are more likely to have watched a TV show on the Internet than elders.

Almost nine in ten Americans currently have cable TV (87 percent) and a majority would stop paying for it in favor of watching TV shows on the Internet if certain conditions were met (56 percent).

Two in five say they would stop paying for cable TV in favor of watching TV shows on the Internet if they could get all of the programs that they wanted to watch for free online (44 percent).

Recently, iSuppli Corp, a market research firm, said that AT&T’s (News - Alert) decision to implement broadband caps and charge extra fees for data usage on wireless devices can act as a barrier to emerging competition from Internet TV.

Such caps will make it difficult for any heavy streaming application hoping to become a TV substitute to get off the ground without the support of wireless operators, iSuppli said.