cord cutting

A survey of 2,000 adult broadband users in the United States has found that people who use Netflix to stream Internet video to their TV are twice as likely to cancel or cut back their cable television payment options as they were a year ago.

Roku VP Jim Funk says 15% to 20% of its users said they cut cable or satellite service after buying a Roku unit. And another 15% to 20% downgraded their service. “We’re seeing [cord cutting], but in the scheme of the whole country, it’s small. But I think it’s a trend.”

TV cable cord-cutting? One of the biggest cable networks says it’s a small, almost microscopic amount — and shrinking in number. ESPN says just 0.18% of all U.S. TV households cut their cable service in the fourth quarter of 2010 and first quarter of 2011. That comes to roughly 209,000 TV homes out of an entire 116 million U.S. TV universe, according to Nielsen.

Yet more evidence disputing cord-cutting came Wednesday in a year-end TV-ratings report from Turner Broadcasting. But the good folks at Turner may have stumbled upon an even more pernicious phenomenon: the decreasing number of consumers who jettison broadband access while holding onto their cable subscriptions.

Mark Cuban predicts success of Netflix and others will be short-lived as pay TV providers expand offers.