Americans' Small-Ticket Budget Cutbacks, June 2013 vs June 2014 [CHART]

Fewer Americans are reporting a cutback in small-ticket purchases compared to a year ago, finds Harris Interactive in its latest survey of spending and saving behavior. That extends to their media subscriptions: the June survey found 24% reporting having canceled one or more magazine subscriptions during the prior 6 months, down from 29% a year earlier. Similarly, fewer reported having canceled a newspaper subscription (13% vs. 18%).

For all the talk of pay-TV cord-cutting (which hasn’t seemed to materialize), there has been no appreciable increase in the percentage of adults reporting having cancelled or cut back cable TV service, with 22% claiming to have done so in the latest survey, down a couple of points from the year-earlier edition. Those are most likely service cutbacks rather than outright cancellations, in light of Q1 survey data from Digitalsmiths suggesting that only 7% of the 1 in 6 adults in the US and Canada who decreased their level of cable/satellite service during the prior year cut their service entirely. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.