According to RBC analyst Steven Cahall, a survey of 1,200 US consumers found that just 55% will definitely continue to subscribe to traditional pay-TV. Extrapolating to the total population of 124 million American households, it means that subscriptions could drop from 86 million pay-TV homes to 68 million.

This “implies subscriber declines still have lots of potential downside,” Cahall wrote in a report obtained by Variety.

Skinny bundles will be a big part of that downside, potentially. The survey found that 21% of existing cable, satellite or telco TV customers were considering switching to a service like Sling TV or DirecTV Now.

“While they don’t necessarily save consumers much money, [internet pay-TV services] do provide more flexibility on cost due to the month-to-month arrangement, have lower switching costs between similar services and avoid much-hated ‘hidden fees’ like set-top box rental and [regional sports networks],” the RBC analyst noted.

Cahall added: “We broadly conclude that customers feel like they ‘get what they pay for’ on [virtual pay-TV services] vs a perceived mistrust about the true cost of cable.”

About half (48%) of respondents said access to sports wasn’t important — sports being a major driver for linear TV packages. Broadcast fared worse: only a quarter (23%) said broadcast networks were the most important content or platform to them.

The study also showed that subscription VOD continues to complement traditional pay-TV: 72% of respondents subscribe to (or use) an SVOD or over-the-top service. Netflix was the most popular, with 61% of respondents saying they’re subscribers, followed by Amazon Prime Video (41%), Hulu (18%), HBO Now (13%), Showtime (4%) and CBS All Access (3%).

All of this has big implications for advertising, of course.

“We conclude that a ratio [of virtual pay-TV subscriber adds] that favours cannibalistic over incremental [growth] is modestly negative for media,” Cahall concluded.