As traditional cable and satellite providers struggle to retain customers in the highly competitive and increasingly fragmented streaming media ecosystem, Black audiences, largely known as loyal cable and satellite television customers, are increasingly opting to cut the cord.
That’s the key takeaway from a new Horowitz study, released Wednesday.
If there is any silver lining for MVPDs and for Dish and DirecTV, it is this: Black households were shedding cable at a slower rate compared to the total market.
However, Horowitz data show that over the past four years, MVPD penetration among Black households has declined from 88% in 2017 to 61% in 2021.
That’s a 25% decrease within the last five years.
Among Black consumers who are cord-cutters, half have cut the cord within the past three years.
In 2018, 69% of Black households were “content omnivores,” a term Horowitz coined in 2017 to describe households who are the hungriest for content and therefore pay for traditional MVPD services as well as a variety of streaming services to access all the content they want.
In the 2021 study, just 33% Black households were content omnivores; almost four in 10 rely on combinations of streaming services, digital antennas, and/or vMVPD services to access TV content (one in four rely only on traditional MVPD services and do not stream at all).
Not surprisingly, income and age play important roles in platform choices.
Black households with lower incomes are less likely to subscribe to traditional MVPDs; 80% of Black cord-cutters believe that they are saving at least a decent amount after having done so. Older Black TV content viewers are more likely to subscribe to MVPD services (65% among those 50+) and to use antennas (28% among those 50+) than younger Black TV content viewers (57% and 12% each, respectively).
Despite shedding the MVPD cord, there is still interest in many of the features of the multichannel experience. For example, 64% of Black TV content viewers say that they enjoy flipping through channels, Horowitz finds. The study also concludes that Black TV content viewers still highly value live television, local broadcast news, national news, and sports content — the mainstays of traditional providers.
Culturally Relevant Content in High Demand
Some 60% of Black consumers watch content geared to Black audiences at least weekly.
This suggests that providers that can deliver the best variety of ultra-current local, national, and international content that reflects contemporary Black perspectives and culture, combined with robust on-demand offerings, will be the best positioned to attract this valuable audience, says Horowitz Chief Revenue Officer and Insights and Strategy Lead Adriana Waterston.
“Horowitz has long asserted that Black consumers are some of the best customers for entertainment content and services,” she says. “These audiences should not be taken for granted. Many companies are late to the game, only now focusing on the Black audience in the context of BLM and new diversity mandates. To not be viewed as simply pandering, companies who hope to serve the Black audience must make meaningful and sustained investments, not just in programming and marketing, but in community outreach and support, in order to earn this valuable audience’s trust.”
