A new study shows Canadians continued to hang up their landline phones for good, and are dropping their cable connections, and even watching less broadcast TV. They’re all being slowly replaced by digital devices.
The report says that by the end of this year, over a quarter of Canadian households, 26.3 percent, will be without a landline and using only mobile devices. That’s up from 22.5 percent last year
As for traditional television services, those too is fading. From 2011 to 2013 Convergence estimated that 3.9 percent of households were using Netflix and other non-tradtional TV sources only. They estimate that by the end of this year, that figure will rise to 5.7 percent which represents about 665,000 households.
Brahm Eiley, co-founder of the Toronto-based consulting group, says the wide variety of relatively low-cost packages on mobile phones have contributed to the cancellation of landlines. Traditional TV service providers –cable, and satellite — are also facing subscriber decreases as viewers find alternatives and the market matures, Eiley said. He said TV providers could lose up to 32,000 subscribers this year.
Netflix arrived in Canada in 2010 and although it has less content than its US counterpart, added several hundred thousand subscribers last year, from 2.2 million in 2012, to 3 million in 2013.
However, he said, “TV is far from dead, . . . ” he said. “It’s taking a couple of hits, but the revolution is still going to be televised at the end of the day.”
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