GfK: Millennials shun traditional pay TV

Millennials are the group most likely to cut the cord, or to have never had a traditional pay TV subscription, a survey of 25,000 US consumers reveals.

The GfK MRI survey shows that millennials account for 43% of the cordless population in the US. It added that almost a third of millennials have shunned pay TV compared to just 16% of the older ‘baby boomer’ group.

Millennials are looking to streaming services for TV, spending two thirds of their entire viewing time streaming programme. Baby boomers by contrast spend over half of their viewing time watching live TV.

Netflix, Amazon and Hulu figured prominently among the millennial’s streaming platforms of choice, but they also gravitated to OTT channels and services such as Crunchy Roll, Twitch and Adult Swim.

The challenge for content companies and advertisers is reaching a millennial audience GfK noted. “Millennials are hard to reach because they are 44 times more likely to be cord-free than the average US consumer,” it said. “Cordless millennials also do not use much media except for Internet – they are heavy streamers, heavy binge viewers, but light on overall TV watching.”