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Number of Live Pay-TV Subscribers Down but Monthly Spending Up vs. 2016, Says Report

Forty-seven percent of TVs in use connect to a pay-TV providers’ set-top box, the first year since 2010 that set-top boxes have been connected to less than half of all TVs, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Three-quarters of U.S. TV…

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households subscribe to a live pay-TV service, down from 84 percent in 2014 and 87 percent in 2009, but average monthly spending on pay TV, $109.60, is up 6 percent since 2016. Average spending on pay TV across all households, including nonsubscribers, is about $80 per month, slightly lower than in 2015, said LRG. Some 83 percent of adults 45 and over have a pay-TV service vs. 64 percent ages 18-44, it said; 27 percent of TV households have an over-the-air TV antenna, 53 percent for pay-TV nonsubscribers. Among all TV households, 54 percent have both pay-TV and a subscription video-on-demand service, 21 percent have only pay TV, 20 percent have SVOD only and 5 percent have neither, LRG said. “With more options for watching live and on-demand video, consumers are increasingly choosing to cobble together the services that meet the viewing and economic needs of their household,” said principal Bruce Leichtman. Survey results were based on a September-October poll of 1,115 adults ages 18 and older in the continental U.S.