Number of Canadians without TV doubles in three years: Survey

The number of people in Canada who do not have a subscription or over-the-air TV service has doubled over past three years, Media Technology Monitor (MTM) said in new survey results. The survey said nearly 10 per cent of anglophones and four per cent of francophones in Canada don't subscribe to a TV service or receive free, over-the-air television. Nationally, that percentage has risen from 4 per cent in 2010 to 7 per cent in 2011 and now to 8 per cent in 2012. “The internet is now a practical alternative to regular TV for light viewers of television,” said the report, referring to people without TV as “tuned out.” “Tuned-Out Canadians watch less than half as much TV (on all platforms) as TV subscribers and 50% less than off-air TV viewers,” the report said. “Tuned-Out Canadians are younger, highly educated and are less interested in sports and entertainment. Furthermore, while TV does not factor significantly into their lives, the Internet does.” The survey attributed the rise in the number of Canadians without TV services in part to local broadcasters' switch to digital, over-the-air signals in 2011. That switch is believed to have cut off some viewers who did not change their TV tuners to digital to pick up the new signals. The survey from MTM, a joint-research project between CBC/Radio-Canada and BBM Analytics, was one of three new polling reports the project released publicly on Wednesday. They are based on a survey in the fall of 2012 of 8,011 Canadians across Canada. The results are accurate within a margin of error of plus or minus 1.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. A separate report on broadcast distribution said the Canadian TV subscription market is fragmented, with 5 per cent of anglophones “off air,” 9 per cent without a TV service, 14 per cent with an Internet-protocol TV (IPTV) provider, 23 per cent using satellite TV, and 48 per cent subscribing to an analog or digital cable service. The survey said that, in 2012, 48 per cent of anglophones were cable subscribers, which dropped from 52 per cent in 2011 and from 54 per cent in 2011. Some of those cable customers switched to IPTV services provided by wireline telecommunications companies, the report said. Another MTM report released Wednesday, called “Telco Television,” said IPTV is the only wireline TV subscription platform that is growing as cable TV continues to decline. MTM said penetration of IPTV among anglophones has risen from 1 per cent in 2007 to 14 per cent in the fall of 2012. Nearly half of anglophone IPTV subscribers are with Telus Corp., the report said, which has been expanding fibre-based IPTV services in Western Canada. As BCE Inc. continues to roll its fibre-based IPTV service in Ontario and Quebec, “we can expect the gap to close,” MTM said. —With reporting by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca and copy editing by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca

Number of Canadians without TV doubles in three years: Survey

Broadcast | March 13, 2013

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