OTTAWA – While most Canadians receive TV from cable or satellite, an increasing number are either switching to telco-provided services or tuning out altogether, according to new reports from Media Television Monitor.
Many consumers are embracing telco TV, or digital TV received via telephone company (also known as IPTV) services from the likes of Telus’ Optik and Bell’s Fibe. Some 14% of Anglophone Canadians now subscribe to a telco TV service, and this growth has largely been at the expense of cable and satellite TV services. Western Canada has adopted Telco TV the fastest due to Telus’ early start, but now Bell is rolling it out aggressively in Ontario and Quebec.
While some subscribers have decided to switch TV service providers, others have decided to drop regular TV altogether. The MTM calls this group “tuned-out” Canadians and they now represent nearly 1 in 10 Anglophone Canadians. They are very light TV viewers (mostly online) and their numbers have nearly doubled in three years. Growth in this category initially came from analog off-air TV viewers that did not switch to digital, but now growth is coming from subscription TV services (e.g. cord-cutting).
MTM’s three new Fall 2012 reports, Telco TV, Tuned-Out and TV Distribution, are available at MTM’s website.
