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UADE Business School and BB-Business Bureau analyse pay TV market’s correlation between U.S. and Latin America

Maribel Ramos-Weiner| April 22, 2014

8 MBA students from different U.S. colleges focused on key areas such as infrastructure, technology, demand, contents and value proposal in their country

BB-Business Bureau and U.S. students who participated in the Seminar Managing Latin America in UADE Business School Argentina, worked together in a research project about main media and telecommunications trends in the U.S. and their impact in Latin America. The report determines that U.S. viewers spend on average 5 hours per day standing in front of television, whereas they spend 4 hours and a half per week watching tapped programming through a DVR or other types of devices. The average household has 2,24 television sets, while 56% U.S. households pay for cable TV service.The research shows that TV viewing time has been declining in the younger population group (known as “cord cutters”), while the elderly still dominate the ranking of permanence in front of television. What’s more, viewers manifest interest in paying for individual channels instead of paying for the whole channels package. This is because, from 180 channels they pay, only watch between 16 and 20. Consequently, they’ve began migrating from a unique content provider, to multiple providers such as Netflix and Hulu.On the other hand, an increase of 43% is estimated for prices of pay TV service by 2015 in th U.S., which also constitutes a negative factor that pushes customers away. Regarding Internet usage in the country, it´s estimated that almost 79% U.S. households have a computer, while 75% pay for Internet service. Moreover, 45,3% of American adults (+25 years) have and use a smartphone.The report focuses also on OTT platforms, and notes that this trend is more adopted by young Americans (16-35 years). Analysts estimate that in the becoming years, the content creation and distribution will be lead by non-traditional players, such as Apple, Google and Amazon.However, TV existence won’t be affected by the advance of these devices. But, they will complement and enrich consumption.