According to Deloitte's 11th "Digital Democracy Survey," OTT streaming, binge-watching, multitasking and social network influence continues to accelerate, further challenging traditional pay TV revenue models. The survey was fielded by an independent research firm Nov. 4-16, 2016, and employed an online methodology among 2,131 U.S. consumers. All data are weighted back to the most recent U.S. census.

"American consumers continued to stream, binge watch and demand more media in 2016. As the growing forces of social media and over-the-top services continue to accelerate, particularly among millennials and Generation Z, the consumer rules," said Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and U.S. media and entertainment leader, Deloitte. "The shift to streaming, mobile, on-demand services and personalization are significant opportunities in 2017. Brands can bring new value, services and incredibly entertaining content to the empowered consumers across all age groups in a manner that can be monetized."

Among the findings:

Streaming, pay TV, binge watching

• 49% of U.S. consumers and nearly 60% of Generation Z, millennials and Generation X subscribe to at least one paid over-the-top (OTT) streaming video service. However, the survey notes that despite the growth of paid streaming services, U.S. consumers spend more time streaming video via free services (40%) than paid streaming subscriptions (35%).
• 74% of consumers across U.S. households still subscribe to pay TV such as cable or satellite, but 66% of subscribers surveyed say they keep their pay TV because it is bundled with their Internet.
• 73% of U.S. consumers (up 3% from 2015) and nearly 90% of millennials and Gen Z have binge watched video content; almost 40% of millennial and Gen Z binge watchers do so weekly. Millennial and Gen Z binge watchers report watching an average of six episodes, or five hours of content, in a single sitting.
• The device of choice for key demographics remains split; Gen Z and millennials spend about half their time watching TV shows and movies on devices other than a TV set. Additionally, Gen X favors the TV set by more than 60%, and Baby Boomers watch more than 80% of programming on the TV set.
• 99% of millennials and Gen Z are multitasking while watching TV, averaging four additional activities, such as texting, browsing the web, using social networks, reading e-mail and online shopping.

Advertising

• 67% of consumers, and more than 70% of Gen Z and millennials, find mobile ads on their phone to be irrelevant; however, 37% of consumers find it valuable to receive location-based ads on their smartphone and use them regularly.
• More than 80% of consumers will skip an online video ad if allowed.
• 46% of consumers said they pay more attention to an ad they can skip vs. an ad they cannot skip.
• 45% of millennials use ad-blocking software, with 89% of the group saying their primary reason is to avoid all advertising. In fact, 40% of them also noted use of ad-blocking software on their smartphones.
• Online recommendations on social media (27%) are more influential than TV ads (18%) for Gen Z in influencing buying decisions.

Social Networks

• 84% of all consumers and more than 90% of Gen Z and millennials are on social networks.
• More than 50% of Gen Z and millennials use social networks to learn about new TV shows, citing it to be more useful than TV commercials.
• 33% of millennials and Gen Z get their news primarily from social media, with 21% saying that TV is still their most popular news platform.
• More than 70% of millennials have used social media to interact with corporate customer service in the last year; 71% of those that have used social media to resolve customer service issues believe they will get a better company response because it's public.