Forrester Predicts 50% Of Adults Under 32 Won’t Pay For Cable By 2025

Forrester Research has some bad news for cable executives hoping to reach younger adults over the next 20 years. The tech and market research firm released a new study which found that by 2025, 50% of U.S. adults under the age of 32 won’t pay for a cable subscription service.

Forrester surveyed over 35,000 Americans and discovered 24% of respondents currently don’t pay for cable. Of this percentage, 18% are cord-nevers, or consumers who have never in their lives purchased a cable subscription (unlike the remaining 6% of cord-cutters, who had cable at one point but cancelled their subscriptions). According to Forrester, 2015 marked the year when the percentage of cord-nevers beat out the percentage of cord-cutters.

James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester and one of the co-authors of the study, believes that by the end of 2015, 65% of adults ages 18-31 will be subscribed to cable, with the remaining 25% being cord-nevers and 10% cord-cutters. The latter two statistics will increase over time until 2025, when the odds are stacked 50/50 for cable-nevers/cable-cutters and cable-havers.