National Survey Reveals Dramatic Shift From Cable to Streaming Services; Substantial Interest in Disney+

By STS News Desk On Aug 13, 2019

National Survey Reveals Dramatic Shift From Cable to Streaming Services; Substantial Interest in Disney+

Colling Media Study Underlines Urgency in Changing Traditional Advertising Approaches

The market research team at Colling Media, a top-ranked national digital advertising and marketing agency, has conducted a nationwide survey about cable-cutting and subscribing to streaming services.

Key findings include:

Migration away from cable is picking up speed—20% of respondents canceled their cable television subscription within the past two months.
There’s a corresponding move toward streaming services—39% of consumers have subscribed to a streaming service in the past two months (such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video).
87% of consumers have watched a program, movie or video on a desktop or laptop computer, tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device within the past two months.
39% of consumers say they are likely or very likely to subscribe to The Disney Company’s bundling of Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu.
73% of consumers say they are annoyed when an ad interrupts a YouTube video. Off those, 58% are most annoyed by the advertiser, by YouTube.

“It’s easy to think the cord-cutting trend might have slowed down, but our research shows an incredible number of consumers continue to move on from cable and dish services,” says Brian Colling, CEO of Colling Media. “People are choosing streaming entertainment services for the same reason they swapped out home phones for cell phones. Mobile, on-demand, and customized choices triumph every time. One way to ensure that cord-cutting customers see a brand’s advertising is by incorporating OTT (over-the-top) into the marketing mix. Many advertisers are buying OTT directly from Hulu and other platforms, and our advanced system can increase the lift substantially by also targeting an advertiser’s first-party data and leads, retargeting site visitors, and adding data that indicates purchasing intent.”

Colling Media’s early adoption of the most reasonable alternative for traditional TV commercials has provided the agency unique OTT insights and capabilities. Connecting OTT data to sales (as other more recognized digital channels like Facebook and Google) is routine. Advanced audience data combined with targeted messages on mobile, desktop, and tablet devices, provides online and offline conversion tracking. Colling Media has identified the most effective OTT networks and regularly produces better pricing than direct buying. OTT advertising is the latest addition to Colling Media’s programmatic capabilities; using technology to buy and sell ad inventory through an automated and data-driven procedure.