Basic streaming media sticks will be a popular gift item this holiday season, due to competitive pricing and expanded over-the-top services, said Barbara Kraus, Parks Associates research director, in a research note. Parks divides the streaming media category into basic stick types (Google Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV) and premium versions (Apple TV, Roku 4). Overall, 14 percent of U.S. broadband households plan to buy a streaming media player by mid-2016, with 31 percent owning one by Q3, said Kraus. Next year, devices will differentiate through additional content options and new technologies such as 4K video, Kraus said. "Ultimately consumers want a simple, uninterrupted experience in accessing OTT content, so that will be the minimum expectation for any device, regardless of the cost.” Kraus said two-thirds of U.S. broadband households connect at least one device to the Internet, with Xbox the leading CE device used for streaming in 14 percent of U.S. broadband households. Following are PlayStation at just under 14 percent and Roku at 10 percent, it said. In other research, Parks said 18 percent of U.K. broadband households have used Netflix in the past 30 days, compared with 20 percent who used the iTV Player and 33 percent who used the iPlayer to stream video programming. Overall, 58 percent of U.K. broadband households used a video-streaming service or player within the past 30 days, it said. A growing number of consumers are willing to pay for subscription services despite availability of free options, said analyst Brett Sappington. Netflix entered Europe “with high expectations,” said Sappington. Subscriber growth has been slow in several parts of Europe with no dominant leaders in subscription services, but Netflix and other entrants are gaining a foothold, Sappington said. Amazon Instant Video had the highest rate of usage in Germany with 17 percent of broadband households, followed by Netflix with 6 percent, he said.

Of the 79 percent of U.S. consumers who subscribe to TV, 23 percent trimmed the cord this past year by scaling back the size of their subscription package, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said in a report Wednesday. Some of that decline is due to the introduction of skinny bundles by multichannel video programming distributors, PwC said, and 57 percent of cord cutters did so because of subscription costs. In 2014, 91 percent of consumers envisioned subscribing to cable in the coming year -- a number that had dropped to 79 percent by 2015, implying close to 20 percent of cable subscribers could cancel within in the next year, PwC said. When cord cutters were asked what would get them to resubscribe, 56 percent said an a la carte customization option. Meanwhile, over-the-top video providers appear to be a threat to cable but not to each other, with 55 percent of Netflix subscribers also subscribing to at least one other OTT service, as do 91 percent of Hulu subscribers, PwC said. The study is based on an online survey of 1,200 U.S. consumers conducted in fall of 2013 and fall of 2014, a pair of consumer groups convened in September in Los Angeles, and a three-month analysis of social media, PwC said.

In wake of the Paris and San Bernardino, California, terrorist attacks, Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist at the National Retail Federation, worries about the “geopolitical fears” of terrorism and the impact those fears might have on consumer confidence heading into 2016, he said on a Monday webinar that NRF sponsored jointly with the Consumer Technology Association. “My concern is whether those fears get more intense and translate into a bit of a holdup” in how consumers “see the future,” Kleinhenz said. “I believe consumers are going to spend based on their confidence,” he said. “Consumer confidence numbers are important. They’re a little bit fickle at times.” News coverage about the Paris and San Bernardino attacks “clearly leaves consumers unsettled and upset,” CTA Chief Economist Shawn DuBravac said. “But I don’t know if consumers broadly view all of these terrorist attacks in a connected way, such that it changes their overall perception of the trajectory of the economy, as it relates to their own financial well-being,” he said.

Despite the diversity of content consumption options, “traditional linear TV” remains a favorite among children aged 3 to 12, Futuresource Consulting’s Kid’s Tech study found. Futuresource in July canvassed more than 1,000 kids and their parents in each of four markets -- China, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. -- and found that 40 percent of the kids it studied rely primarily on free broadcast TV for their content, Futuresource said in a report. Online video services such as Netflix are at 25 percent, up from 22 percent a year ago. The study also said “the main TV screen seems to be maintaining its position as the main window to the kids' world of entertainment content.” It found 55 percent of the kids it studied in the survey watching content on the main TV screen for an average of more than six hours a week, it said Thursday. By comparison, fewer than three in 10 are watching video on a smartphone or tablet for more than six hours a week, it said.

Three in every four millennials routinely delete content to free up storage space on their smartphones and later regret it, a survey for Western Digital found. The company commissioned research firm Vanson Bourne to canvass 5,000 consumers aged 16 to 24 in the U.K., France, Germany and the U.S. to analyze how people “create, consume, share and store digital content,” it said in a report. Though many described content on their smartphones as “priceless,” sacrificing a picture or video to free up storage space on the device “is a regular occurrence,” it said. Thirty-one percent said they run out of space on their smartphones on a weekly basis, while 17 percent say this is a daily problem, the company said. “Running out of storage space isn't the greatest challenge threatening mankind at the moment, but it's certainly an annoyance for a great many consumers," it said. "Our findings clearly show that consumers are sacrificing precious memories and valuable content to make more space on their devices." A big reason why deleting content is so prevalent is millenials’ preference for digital forms of media over physical content, it said. “Of the respondents, 48 percent prefer digital versions of music albums compared to 25 percent preferring the hard copy,” it said. “The same goes for films,” with 41 percent of respondents preferring a digital copy versus 29 percent for DVD or Blu-ray, it said. “With an average of five music albums, five feature films and five television shows being downloaded each week by the consumers in the study, it's clear a huge amount of digital media is being consumed.” The findings “support the notion that there is a disconnect among the majority of consumers over how much digital content they consume and create and how much storage they own and need,” the company said Thursday.

Global shipments of connected TV devices, which include smart TVs, videogame consoles, smart Blu-ray players and digital media streamers, jumped 18 percent in Q3 to 52.7 million units from 44.5 million in Q3 2014, Strategy Analytics said in a Tuesday report. Shipments of smart TVs, which have the largest share (47 percent) of installed connected TV devices, grew 26 percent in the quarter to 30.1 million units, making up 52 percent of all flat-panel TVs shipped globally, the research firm said. Many TV makers are “doubling down” on smart functionality and “making it a standard feature of their mid to high-end sets,” it said. Consumers “increasingly expect their next TV purchase” to be a smart TV, while retailers now see smart TVs as “a checkbox feature,” it said. Though big makers like Samsung have publicly vowed that all the TVs they sell by 2017 will have smart functionality, “some of the biggest growth in the market” is being driven by second- and third-tier brands, it said. Samsung remained brand-share leader in Q3 smart TV shipments with 25 percent, and one in every four smart TVs in use around the world is a Samsung model, it said. LG had 15 percent share of the Q3 smart TV, for second place, it said.

Nearly 100 million consumer robots will be sold over the next five years, a report from Tractica said. Household robots will be the largest segment of the market for the next few years, but robotic personal assistants will be the fastest growing segment, Tractica said Monday. Personal assistant robots, a nascent segment today, include products such as SoftBank’s Pepper or Jibo, which raised $3.7 million on Indiegogo. Tractica uses descriptors such as mobile, humanoid and anthropomorphic to characterize products that fit the category, but it doesn't factor in purely voice-based assistants such as Amazon Echo or Cubic that don’t have moving parts. The robots can play multiple roles in the home: as personal organizers, photographers or videographers, personal communicators, entertainers, emotional companions or security monitors, Tractica said. Most companies developing family robots are opening their robots to third-party developers, allowing these robots to be programmed for new use cases and applications, Tractica said. Comparing the business model to that of smartphones, the market research firm said applications are “endless,” with the app ecosystem largely driving innovation.

A Federal Aviation Administration task force was expected to have released a report Saturday on how owners and operators of small drones can register their aircraft, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced in a blog post Friday. "Registration will instill a sense of accountability and responsibility among [unmanned aircraft systems] pilots and also will prompt them to become educated about safe flying in the national airspace system," he wrote. "For those who choose to ignore the rules and fly unsafely, registration is a tool that will assist us and our law enforcement partners in finding them." Huerta said the agency would consider the task force's recommendations and public comments as it develops an interim final rule on registration that "will likely be released next month."

Baby boomers watch close to 2.5 hours more TV a week than younger post-boomers, and have a stronger first preference for live TV than post-boomers (68 percent versus 45 percent) and less of an inclination to go to over-the-top (OTT) streaming services first, The Diffusion Group said in a report. TDG said 44 percent of boomers stream OTT video to their TVs weekly and average more than four hours a week of streaming content viewing, while 67 percent of post-boomers do streaming, and watch roughly 10 hours a week. While both boomers and post-boomers favor subscription services for their streaming content, boomers tend to use TV network and service provider sources while post-boomers tend to watch free content, TDG said Thursday. Boomers’ use of devices that allow streaming to the TV is growing rapidly, but they tend to connect via smart TVs while post-boomers tend to use game consoles, the firm said. About 35 percent of boomers use their smartphones for streaming and watch 2.4 hours a week via those devices, while 62 percent of post-boomers watch video on their phones and watch nearly twice as much video, TDG said. Boomers also are more likely to subscribe to traditional pay TV than post-boomers (91 percent versus 83 percent), it said. The data came from a survey of 3,428 people done in 2015.

Q3 U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content inched upward by 0.2 percent to $3.97 billion on vibrant spending on subscription streaming, which jumped 23.3 percent to $1.27 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group said Friday in its quarterly trends report. Total Q3 spending on digital delivery, including subscription streaming, electronic sell-through and VOD, jumped 15.8 percent to $1.44 billion, DEG said. But it was another tough quarter for packaged media, as sell-through of physical discs fell 14 percent to $1.15 billion and subscription-based rentals of physical media, such as through the Netflix legacy DVD business, fell 15.6 percent to $173.1 million, it said. For the nine months through Sept. 30, total spending was up 0.4 percent to $12.73 billion on a 15.8 percent rise on digital delivery spending to $6.44 billion and despite a 14.2 percent decline in physical media sell-through to $3.94 billion. For Q3, consumers “continued to embrace the convenience and accessibility of purchasing and collecting digital content, with studios reaping the higher margins that come from digital sales,” DEG said.