Birmingham Ala. - June 4, 2008 – As fuel costs increase and family budgets are pressured, consumers are sticking close to home for entertainment. Officials at Bright House Networks say that consumer “nesting” may be one of the reasons they have experienced noticeable growth in customer use of video-on-demand in recent months.
A December 2007 study by The Nielsen Company conducted when gas prices were just over $3 per gallon found that 39 percent of consumers are staying home more often due to the high cost of fuel. The same study showed that the number of consumers shopping online jumped from 9 percent to 15 percent.
“With the rising cost of gasoline, families are looking for cost-efficient alternatives to family entertainment and shopping. Digital solutions, such as video-on-demand, provide a viable option,” said Karen Broach, president of Bright House Networks Birmingham. “In the Birmingham community, cable television has historically been one of the chief sources of entertainment; this is likely the next evolution.”
Bright House Networks officials say their subscribers’ video-on-demand usage has grown 50 percent per year, and video-on-demand has become increasingly popular. Video-on-demand capability allows digital cable customers to select content and watch it on their television at a time they choose. Typical options include movies, music videos, and kids’ content.
“This year we passed half a billion video-on-demand views, and it became clear that the way people view their cable service has completely transformed, in just the five years that we’ve been in business as Bright House Networks,” Broach said. The company was formed in 2003 when a portion of Time Warner Cable was spun off into an independent entity.
As families spend more time at home, Broach said that Bright House Networks expects its customers to look to television and their cable service for more functionality.
“The typical video-on-demand user now views the equivalent of two dozen videos per month,” she said. “With current economic conditions, providing families a variety of entertainment and shopping options they can access on demand from their home has become increasingly important.”
Bright House Networks’ customer usage pattern is consistent with an IBM consumer survey released in late 2007 in which 48 percent of U.S. respondents reported use of video-on-demand services and that digital entertainment is being adopted faster than anticipated.
Technological innovations play a key role in rapid consumer adoption, according to Broach.
“Technology is moving faster and faster,” she said, “partly to keep up with how people want to live and partly actually driving how people live. Consumers overall are more technology-savvy. They are accustomed to having instant entertainment at their fingertips and today’s on-demand capabilities have made that possible. Consumers can only benefit as our industry strives to provide the kind of content that they want.”
About Bright House Networks
Bright House Networks is the nation’s 6th largest multiple cable system operator (MSO) with 2.4 million customers in several large markets including Bakersfield, California; Birmingham, Alabama; Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Orlando, Florida (Central Florida Division) and Tampa Bay, Florida along with several other smaller systems in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The high-growth Tampa/Central Florida markets are contiguous and form one of the country’s largest cable clusters. BHN’s corporate locations are in Syracuse, New York and Orlando, Florida.
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