Citing improved broadcast TV quality from digital

technology and the growth of online viewing, eMarketer

notes a couple of recent research reports indicating that

more American households are cutting the cord and opting

for broadcast-only TV, rather than pay TV services. The

trend is particularly pronounced in minority populations.

GfK recently surveyed U.S. television households and

found that 19.3% of respondents had broadcast TV only

and did not subscribe to any pay TV service. That’s a 37.9%

increase from 2010 when only 14% of households shunned

pay TV services and relied solely on broadcast TV. Among

black households, the cord-cutting

was particularly dramatic, jumping 10

percentage points over the period to 22%.

One quarter of Hispanic households

now rely exclusively on over-the-air

broadcasting, but that was a smaller

increase, since in 2010 already 23% of

Hispanic households with TV relied on

broadcast TV programming only. The

GfK study also found that among Hispanic households

where primarily Spanish was spoken, the percentage

that subscribed to pay TV declined from 67% in 2010 to

49% in 2013. Asian households, however, moved in the

opposite direction. 30% of Asian households in the U.S.

were broadcast-only in 2010, but that decreased to only

23% in 2013.