A new report from Parks Associates indicates that bilingual Spanish-language broadband households in the U.S. are more likely to have pay TV and OTT video service subscriptions than the average U.S. broadband household. In the survey of U.S. broadband households where Spanish is spoken daily, Parks reports that 89 percent of these households have a pay TV subscription and more than 75 percent subscribe to at least one OTT video services. Among average U.S. broadband households, 84 percent reportedly subscribe to pay TV, and roughly two-thirds subscribe to an OTT service.
“While pay TV penetration has declined among U.S. broadband households, adoption has remained steady among Spanish-bilingual households over the past few years,” Brett Sappington, senior director of research at Parks, says. “Cord cutting does not have the same impact in Spanish-language households as it does for the larger broadband population. In fact, most of their recent pay TV changes have been upgrades to more expensive services.”
The research further shows that bilingual Spanish-language pay TV households in the United States are more likely than the average household to have purchased pay TV upgrades within the past 12 months. Parks says a key pay TV driver for Spanish-language households is the appeal of premium movie channels, with 58 percent reporting that premium movie channels in a pay TV package are appealing. Additionally, 41 percent of respondents to the survey state that the content on pay TV is not available on OTT video services.
“At one time, many operators required that consumers subscribe to a base package of primarily English-language channels in order to purchase a bundle of Spanish-language channels,” Sappington observers. “Today, Spanish-language services are evolving to better meet the needs of the consumers who demand them. New services are emerging that cater to this segment, including services such as Sling Latino and Univision Now.”
