For months we have heard that cord cutting costs more than cable TV because you need to subscribe to so many services. Many of the examples have pushed the idea that you need six, seven, or sometimes eight or more services to get what you want.
The research group TDG recently reported that the average cord cutter subscribes to just over three streaming services. So, we decided to ask our readers how many streaming services they subscribe to so we could see who is right—the industry executives or TDG.
According to over 1,000 of our Cord Cutters News readers, cord cutters subscribe to on average four or fewer paid streaming services. (Note: This counts only paid services not free ad-supported services like Pluto TV or Xumo.)
Here is a quick break down:
- 1 streaming service: 12%
- 2 streaming services: 31%
- 3 streaming services: 35%
- 4 streaming services: 17%
- 5 streaming services: 4%
- 6 streaming services: Less than 1%
- 7 streaming services: Less than 1%
- 8 streaming services: Less than 1%
- 9 or more streaming services: Less than 1%
What may be even more shocking is 78% of cord cutters subscribe to three or fewer streaming services. (Note these results are accurate at the time of this posting. As more people vote they may change slightly.)
The fear has been that many cord cutters would just keep adding service after service to the point that their bill would be higher than cable. Yet it seems that cord cutters have found the ability to add and remove subscriptions very helpful. Recently, we saw how searches for “how to cancel HBO” after the end of Game of Thrones skyrocketed on the day of the show even when compared to the past year last year.
It will be interesting to see how Disney+ will fit into this, but for the vast majority of cord cutters adding Disney+ will still keep them at four or fewer streaming services.
Did you know we have a YouTube Channel? Every week we have a live Cord Cutting Q&A, and weekly Cord Cutting recap shows exclusively on our YouTube Channel!
Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews. Need cord cutting tech support? Join our Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.