Why families are the fastest growing cord-cutting demographic
Parents aged 35-54 with two or three kids increasingly see streaming services as a better fit than traditional cable TV.
Families are the leading demographic when it comes to cord-cutting, a recent analysis shows, as streaming services try to edge out traditional cable TV services by offering a cheaper and more personalized alternative.
According to fuboTV's "Portrait of a Cord-Cutter" report, families with a parent 35-54 with two or three children are also most likely to stick with a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu after canceling traditional cable TV service. The parent is typically a working professional with a college or advanced degree.
"Cord-cutting families want the convenience of watching different content on multiple screens at the same time, which they can't do with cable TV," according to fuboTV.
With the wide range of ages within an average family, the need for multiple screens with different content is stronger than it would be for a non-family household, fuboTV says.
"Families who use three or more devices to access fuboTV retain for the first month (after the free trial period ends) 28 percent higher than the household that only watches on one device," according to the analysis.
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"The best cord-cutters, which retain well, are families," the report states. "They are looking for a live TV streaming service that will meet the different needs of everyone in the household (parents, teens, young children) and are most likely to take full advantage of cord-cutting."
Cord-cutting is seen as a way to save money and watch more content on demand.
The data shows that fuboTV users watched over 103 hours of streamed content per month, up 135 percent year-over-year.
The highest viewing days for fuboTV are Saturdays and Sundays, and the majority of all content is watched during primetime, when parents are home from work and children are home from school.
Overall, fuboTV subscribers spent 31 percent of their viewing time watching kids programming, which is more than the 24 percent of time subscribers spend watching news-related content. That figure is nearly identical to the time streamers spend watching sports, too, with 33 percent of streaming time being spent watching sports-related content in October 2019.
While the report states that the primary reason consumers dumped their cable TV subscriptions this year was to save money, the diverse entertainment needs of families and the evolution in streaming technology will be the primary reasons behind cord-cutting in 2020.
"We believe consumers will continue to cut the cord not only to save money but because of better user experience with the introduction of live TV personalization, enhancements to DVR, as well as on-demand viewing and increased social viewing."