The Bundle’s Not Dead, It’s Just Changing
YouTube, Hulu and AT&T are all preparing to offer over-the-top live TV packages in the next few months. Those current and soon-to-be OTT providers can be placed in two categories: pay TV companies trying to capture customers who probably weren’t all that likely to subscribe to a traditional cable package in the first place and purely digital players looking to become more like traditional pay TV companies.
American consumers appear to be getting more knowledgeable about the over-the-top options available to them, and are customizing their subscriptions to fit their needs. That’s according to GfK’s latest report, which found that 16% of the viewing population has more than one SVOD subscription, up 10% in the past three years. The research firm has dubbed these multiple-service takers as “self-bundlers” — consumers with higher-than average incomes but a lower-than-average tendency to have pay TV subscriptions.
