It appears Americans and Europeans care about having the option to watch television on multiple devices like smartphones and tablet computers.
In a survey of 8,000 consumers in seven countries, Parks Associates found that 15 to 30 percent of broadband homes in North America and Europe are willing to pay extra in order to obtain so-called TV Everywhere.
Such multiscreen offerings could help television companies retain and acquire subscribers, but Parks Associates analysts believe operators will be limited in their ability to grow average revenues per subscriber.
The survey found that one-third of all broadband homes would defect to a provider that offered free TV Everywhere.
“You can charge additional fees for TV Everywhere as long as nobody else offers it for free," said John Barrett, Director of Research with Parks Associates, in a statement. “It’s a great example of the prisoner’s dilemma in economics. As soon as one player offers it for free, everybody will be forced to do so, or they will start bleeding subscribers."
Parks Associates cited as an example a pay wall that Fox erected for its content. The pay wall resulted in “a noticeable increase in the downloads of Fox shows on torrent sites," the market research and consulting company said, “highlighting the difficulty of implementing pay models for multiscreen video."
