Most U.S. consumers want to be able to view Internet content on their television sets—but their level of desire varies depending on where they live, what kind of television service they now have and whether they are male or female, according to new research from iSuppli Corp.
In its first-quarter survey of more than 2,500 pay-TV customers in the United States, iSuppli found that nearly two-thirds of respondents wanted to view content on their televisions that originated from outside the “walled garden” of their pay-TV services.
When asked, “Would you like your television to connect to the Internet and PCs?,” almost 61 percent of respondents strongly agreed or somewhat agreed. Approximately three in 10 “strongly agreed,” indicating that they want outside content delivered to their televisions.
Interestingly, when the same question was posed only to those Pay-TV customers who already have broadband connections, the number increases only slightly, with 65 percent of respondents stating that they “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree.”
The responses from satellite customers are not as strong as those from cable subscribers. Approximately 55 percent of satellite customers want to connect the Internet and PCs to their television. The percentage is consistent among subscribers to DirecTV and EchoStar, although more DirecTV respondents said they strongly agreed. When only subscribers that have broadband service as well as pay TV service are questioned, the difference between cable and satellite customers becomes insignificant.
“We noted some interesting differences in the responses from the big-five cable operators,” said Rick Sizemore, vice president at iSuppli. “Two thirds of the respondents from Cablevision wanted content from outside the walled garden, whereas only 55 percent of Charter Communications Inc. respondents did. Comcast was right in the middle of the two, with 61 percent of their more than 650 respondents wanting to view content that originated outside of the walled garden.”
iSuppli also found that:
· Subscribers in Hawaii, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Utah expressed the highest level of interest in viewing Internet content on their television of all U.S. states. West Virginia had the lowest interest, at 27 percent.
· Males exhibit a much higher level of interest than females in connecting their televisions to the Internet and PCs, with almost 74 percent of respondents strongly agreeing or somewhat agreeing. In contrast, only 56 percent of women responded similarly.
· Responses to the question: “Would you like TV to be connected to the Internet and PCs?” correlated closely to income. Respondents with annual incomes higher than $200,000 responded that they “strongly agreed” or “somewhat agreed” 80 percent of the time.


For more research on the topic, please see iSuppli’s latest report, entitled: Internet TV: Revenue and Network Demands for Online News, Sports and Entertainment Video. The report provides a comprehensive survey of the topic of Internet TV. Topics covered include mass market ad-supported content, such as professionally-produced Snacks, Episodes and Features, which are delivered over broadband connections either by unicast streaming or by download.?The market is forecasted in terms of video streams, bandwidth and revenue by content type, length and geography.