Do you have Netflix? Have you cut the cord?
If you’ve done both of those things, you’re in good company. According to a survey we did over at
AllFlicks, 33% of Netflix subscribers have cut the cord. That 33% includes only Netflix users who once did have cable and have since cancelled it – a bad sign for cable companies and major networks, for whom that 33% represents a bunch of lost customers.
High cable costs are driving Netflix users to cut the cord, according to a survey we conducted on our sister site
So why did all of these Netflix subscribers choose to cut their cable? The answer isn’t much of a surprise. Out of the 328 people in that 33%, 171 of them cited high costs as the reason that they got rid of their cable. That’s more than half (52%, to be exact).
It’s hard to blame them – according to their responses, the cost differences are significant. When asked to report their current costs, a large chunk of the respondents said $10–$20. Of the 171 people who fled cable because of high costs, 75 individuals (44%) have current costs in that range. Since this subset of respondents were all Netflix users, and Netflix costs between $8.99 and $11.99 for its current packages, it’s likely that these subscribers were using either just Netflix, or Netflix and one other service.
According to the FCC, the average price of a cable package in January of 2014 was $66.61. For these survey respondents now paying $10–$20, the savings are big.
One very interesting finding in our survey was the age distribution of cord-cutting Netflix subscribers. Among former cable users who no longer pay for cable but do subscribe to Netflix, the largest group was those of age 50 or older (out of the 328 respondents that fit that criteria, 119 were 50 or older). Ages 35–39 and 30–34 also made up a significant portion of the cord cutters. All told, 83% of the ex-cable subscribers who responded to our survey were 30 or older. Conventional wisdom says that cord cutting is a youth movement, but in this particular group – survey respondents who have Netflix, once paid for cable, and no longer do – that stereotype did not hold true.
This could mean several things. It’s possible that more young people have never had cable, and therefore didn’t qualify as cord cutters (they would be cord nevers). It’s also possible that younger people are less likely to have their own Netflix subscription (maybe they share a password or use illegal streams or downloads instead). Whatever the reason, though, this shows that Netflix isn’t just the wave of the future – it appears to be very good at getting older cable users to try out cord cutting. That helps explain why
Netflix is beginning to outdraw the major networks.
Those percentages didn’t change much in the group that reported cost as the main problem, showing that cord cutters of all ages are influenced by the high cost of cable.
Our survey was not conducted on this site (that would skew the results, since this site caters specifically to cord cutters!). It was conducted on our sister site
AllFlicks, which is aimed at Netflix users but does not promote cord cutting or specifically target cord cutters as an audience. Over one thousand people took part in the survey.
This is the second article in a series about our AllFlicks survey.
You can check out the first here.
