Study: 23% of Millennials Head OTT-Only Broadband Homes

About 23% of Millennial heads of household are OTT-only homes, higher than the national average of 15% of all U.S. broadband homes, Parks Associates said in a new study released Wednesday.

But the silver lining for the pay TV industry is this -- the data also showed that 61% of Millennials subscribe to both pay TV and OTT services, also higher than the national average of 52%.

 “Younger consumers are willing to subscribe to pay-TV service, provided the offerings align with their expectations," Ruby-Ren Bond, research analyst at Parks Associates said, in a statement. "In particular, Millennials show higher-than-average affinity for popular culture and premium movie channels as well as programming for younger children.”

Among other findings in the study, Parks Associates said 60% of OTT video services in the North American market are subscription based, and that 64% of U.S. homes now subscribe to an OTT video service, up from 59% in 2015.

Additionally, the average monthly spend on an OTT SVOD service among U.S. broadband homes rose from $3.17 per month in 2012, to $6.19 per month in 2015.

OTT services also must stay on top of churn, as about 20% of U.S. broadband homes cancelled at least one OTT video service in 2015.

Among individual services, 5% of U.S. broadband homes cancelled Netflix in 2015.

Roughly 14% of U.S. broadband homes subscribe to Hulu, with 7% cancelling service during 2015, about the same churn rate from the research firm’s Q2 2015 data analysis.

Almost a quarter (24%) of U.S. broadband homes get a video subscription service via Amazon.

Parks Associates based its latest quarterly findings on a survey of 10,000 broadband households fielded in March 2016.