Study: Broadcast Only Homes Jump 41% in 5 Years The number of homes that have cancelled cable and only get signals over the air (broadcast channels delivered via antenna) has jumped 41% in the last five years. That's according to a new study by Ion Media commissioned by Nielsen, which tags the total number of broadcast-only households at 15.8 million. The report notes that ditching cable for a traditional antenna is particularly popular with younger viewers, many of which have been surprised to learn that free TV content is available (for now) without a pricey cable subscription.

The report notes that broadcast-only homes have a higher percentage of young viewers (median age 34.5) than total TV households (39.6). Additionally, 39% of broadcast-only homes have children in the household, compared to 34% of total TV households. "Broadcast-only homes are also hard at work," insists the report. "According to the report, they have a greater composition of working head of householders than total TV homes, with 67% in the labor force." Part of this popularity is thanks to products like Sling's AirTV, which lets users record content delivered over antenna. A report by Parks and Associates earlier this year found that 15% of broadband households now get all of their television content from over the air (OTA) antenna. The resurgence in OTA's popularity is in part thanks to the industry itself. With consumers increasingly facing more and more cable channel blackouts due to cable and broadcaster rate disputes, more and more customers are turning to using antennas to access blacked out content. Increasingly, many cable providers are giving away free antennas to users for use during these annoying and increasingly common retransmission fee feuds. And of course the surge in OTA use rises in concert with cord cutting. Data from SNL Kagan indicates that the pay TV sector lost 976,000 customers last quarter, and have lost a combined 1.8 million paying subscribers so far in 2017. And of course the surge in OTA use rises in concert with cord cutting. Data from SNL Kagan indicates that the pay TV sector lost 976,000 customers last quarter, and have lost a combined 1.8 million paying subscribers so far in 2017.







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Most recommended from 17 comments



ctaranto

join:2011-12-14

MA 11 recommendations ctaranto Member Younger generation? My wife and I are well over the "young viewer" median (by about 10 years) listed in the article. We also have two teen age kids. We "cut the (tv) cord" in 2014 and miss nothing from the crud that is on cable.



Reasons we cut:

1. Cost. VZ FiOS was charging us $280/month for Internet, TV (3 DVRs), and phone (not used).

2. There is nothing of quality (for us) on the cable channels. Just a whole lot of mediocre to lousy programming.



We already had Netflix and Amazon Prime.



In a day, I replaced the entire system with:

Attic mounted DB8e antenna -> HDHomerun Plus -> MythTV (Linux) -> nVidia Shield/Kodi



I now have two Shields and a relic Fire TV (gen 1) for our 3 TVs. All share the same guide, recorded programs, local movie library using Kodi. All also have Netflix and Amazon Prime.



We kept our VZ FiOS internet (75/75) and cut our costs to $60/month.

Packeteers

Premium Member

join:2005-06-18

Forest Hills, NY ·Verizon FiOS

·Charter

Asus RT-AC3100

(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

9 recommendations Packeteers Premium Member cable = compressed crap when i showed my triple play neighbor the same channel using ota,

he could not believe how crystal clear and detailed my picture was,

and he's got a much fancier flat screen than i could ever afford.



cable shots itself in the foot by delivering qam so terribly compressed,

so it's no wonder people with good up-verting 4k's go back to their ota.



additionally when an isp soft caps or throttles

they only ending up driving more back to ota.

n2jtx

join:2001-01-13

Glen Head, NY 5 recommendations n2jtx Member Antenna's As a ham, I have always been "into" antennas so I have always kept OTA capability. In the old days I had a rotator so that I could pickup not only signals from NYC, west of me, but eastern Long Island and Connecticut too. These days I use two antennas, one pointed toward NYC and one pointed northeasterly. They are fed into a high gain UHF amplifier. I also added a small VHF antenna aimed at NYC to cover channels 7, 11 and 13 which are still on VHF. Our former VHF channels 2, 4, 5 and 9 are now on UHF. davidhoffman

Premium Member

join:2009-11-19

Warner Robins, GA 4 recommendations davidhoffman Premium Member OTA. Good to read this, but with digital ATSC you need large antenna to recieve stations that you used to be able to get with analog NTSC using basic rabbit ears. I have found that amplifiers do not help as much as significant increases in the square inches of antenna. I am saving up to install a very large antenna on an interior wall to replace a small amplified antenna. I live in an apartment so no outside antennas are possible that would comply with the landlord's strict interpretation of the OTARD rules. I liked the sunroom apartments more than I liked the outside open porch apartments. I miss the old Chicago style apartment places with the giant outside master antennas on the roof. b10010011

Whats a Posting tag?

join:2004-09-07

Bellingham, WA 3 recommendations b10010011 Member OTA certainly has a better price/performance ratio than cable Nucleartx

join:2016-09-08

Belton, TX 2 edits 2 recommendations Nucleartx Member Broadcasters Broadcasters know that the younger generation hardly watches

We get our news stations stories on social media anymore. More options for a much greater value.

TheTechGuru

join:2004-03-25

TEXAS 2 recommendations TheTechGuru Member I Heard This A Long Time Ago Now...





I'm currently using Windows Media Center with a PCI ATSC tuner card and a OTA antenna. I just don't know what I'm going to do when I'm forced to give up Windows 7 / WMC...