Want to Sell Cell Service? Find Big TV Owners

CTAM Surveys 1,009 on Potential Cable Quadruple-Play Bundle

By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 5/7/2007 12:01:00 AM

Planning on rolling out a quadruple-play bundle by adding cellular-phone service in the next year? Then plan on aiming at families with children from higher-income brackets who own big-screen TVs.

According to a telephone survey conducted on behalf of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, subscribers who fit in that demographic are the most interested in buying cell-phone services from their cable provider.

And dont stress providing video programming to those phones, according to the survey conducted in March by International Communications Research of Media, Pa.

Most of those polled said theyre not really interested in watching programming on their handsets. Theyre more interested in the ability to call between their cell and home phones without incurring extra charges or forwarding their cell calls to their home landline than watching a sitcom on their phone.

The results are from a sample of 1,009 randomly selected adults who were called by phone between March 21-29 for a CTAM Pulse survey executed by ICR. Of those participating, 57% are currently cable customers. Of that percentage, 31% buy premium cable services and 28% are digital customers. And 25% of all survey respondents buy their video from direct-broadcast satellite providers.

Cable operators moving into the cellular-delivery business will have quite a hurdle. A total of 90% of respondents said they are disinclined to switch mobile-phone providers in the next six months, the survey indicated. This statistic is attributable to satisfaction with current service and the proliferation of long-term contracts with providers, the survey said.

One-third of the 10% that expressed dissatisfaction with their current carrier said they would be interested in buying cellular service from their cable provider if consumers were offered incentives such as discounted pricing for buying a bundle of services.

More consumers responded theyd be interested in a multiproduct package from a cable provider (24%) than would be interested in a cell-phone-only purchase from an operator (18%).

The survey also indicated a strong propensity for consumers to accept some level of bundled services. Of the respondents, 69% said theyd be interested in a quad play. Only 22% of the DBS customers surveyed indicated that theyd be willing to jump ship and subscribe to four services from a cable operator.

The advanced calling features most desired by potential cell-phone customers include the ability to e-mail from their phones (29%), instant messaging (23%), surfing the Web and downloading music (18% for each feature).

Only 5% of total households and 6% of respondents who are already cell-phone users are interested in mobile TV. If they do download TV programming, they would be most interested in news, weather and information, cartoons and sitcoms. Theyre only willing to watch that content for 20 minutes at a time, according to the survey.