Despite the growing wealth of content options available to consumers, few rival the influence of live sports, as evidenced by the boom in NFL viewership this season, which culminates with Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13, 2022. And while consumers have been watching professional football on TV for decades, connectivity is playing an increasingly important role in how they watch today, as 28% of all U.S. TV households now use broadband connections for their TV viewing.
As residências que utilizam apenas banda larga (BBO) representam o tipo predominante de cord cutters — residências que recebem sua programação de TV sem acesso aos serviços tradicionais de cabo ou satélite (o outro tipo utiliza uma antena física, normalmente digital, para acessar a programação). No total, 44% das residências cancelaram a assinatura ou nunca tiveram serviços tradicionais de TV a cabo ou satélite (cord nevers). Há cinco anos, 81% das residências com TV nos EUA acessavam conteúdo televisivo por meio de decodificadores tradicionais de TV a cabo ou satélite.
While the shift is a clear indicator of how Americans are changing the ways they consume content, BBO households are leading the charge where sports are concerned, especially during this year’s NFL playoffs. In fact, viewers 25-54 in BBO homes across LPM+PPM markets accounted for 17%-18% of the TV audience for the divisional playoff games on Jan. 22 and 23. Fast forward a week to the Conference Championship and that number was just under 20%. Comparatively, between Jan. 6 and Jan. 23, viewers 25-54 in BBO homes accounted for approximately 10% of the non-sports programming on the three networks that carried the divisional and conference championship playoffs. But BBO homes are interested in more than just professional football. Last year, for example, persons 25-54 in BBO homes made up 11% of all NBC Olympic viewing minutes.
In addition to highlighting the importance of sports programming to BBO homes, the data also illustrates how BBO homes use their connectivity for much more than just streaming movies from over-the-top services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. It’s true that connectivity has driven massive growth in content that Americans are streaming, especially during the pandemic, but broadband usage was growing among U.S. households well before COVID-driven lockdowns began. And that growth is accelerating.
In January 2022, more than 83% of U.S. homes had at least one TV connected device—that’s up 10 percentage points from January 2020 (74%). And while increasing connected TV device penetration has also fostered the growth of broadband-only (BBO) homes in the U.S., which now account for 28% of all TV households, penetration in some markets is higher than 36%. Importantly, BBO isn’t just prominent in major city-anchored DMAs. In fact, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced new funding of as much as $1.2 billion through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to expand broadband access in 32 states. Through this funding, 23 providers will bring broadband service to more than 1 million locations.
Embora o anúncio da FCC se refira a investimentos futuros, já podemos ver o impacto da conectividade de banda larga em mercados que são notavelmente menores do que grandes cidades como Los Angeles, Nova York e Chicago. Na verdade, quando analisamos a audiência dos jogos divisoriais e dos playoffs do campeonato, as principais DMAs para a audiência da BBO são notavelmente mais rurais do que Nova York e Los Angeles.
Em meio a uma crescente variedade de opções de mídia, a internet banda larga se estabeleceu como um meio de acessar uma variedade de conteúdo de vídeo — não apenas programação de serviços de streaming. Na verdade, as residências que recebem sua programação de TV por meio de conexões de banda larga agora superam em número aquelas que recebem sua programação por meio de antenas (residências que recebem apenas transmissão aberta). A programação esportiva sempre foi um dos principais impulsionadores da audiência programada, mas o envolvimento dramático com o conteúdo esportivo sugere que mesmo as residências que são mais propensas a consumir conteúdo de acordo com sua programação assistirão à programação agendada quando for a programação que estão procurando.
