(TNND) — Streaming is taking over, but live TV consumption hasn’t fallen off as drastically as a new survey suggests, according to a man who researches the broadband, media and entertainment industries.

A new Pew Research Center survey found that most Americans watch streaming services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, but only about a third of Americans still subscribe to cable or satellite TV at home.

Bruce Leichtman of the Leichtman Research Group said that’s a misleadingly low figure for live TV consumption, as the survey doesn’t clearly account for a big segment of the market: internet-delivered live TV services like YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV.

Americans are clearly cutting the cord and have been for a while.

But the shift isn’t as dramatic as the survey paints it, Leichtman said.

“Right now, it's even as far as viewership is concerned,” Leichtman said. “Obviously, it’s an evolving process. Obviously, fewer people are subscribing to a live TV service than ever before. Part of that is because the providers who are selling it aren't selling it as aggressively as before.”

Leichtman pointed to a recent Nielsen announcement that streaming viewership eclipsed the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time ever. Nielsen reported streaming hit 44.8% of TV viewership in May, while broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%) combined for 44.2% of TV viewership.

Pew Research Center asked people if they watched streamers and if they subscribed to cable or satellite TV at home.

Leichtman said that, too, is an “apples and oranges” way to survey the audience. It’s one thing the watch. It’s another thing to subscribe.

The Pew Research Center found 72% of American adults watch Netflix, which was the most-watched streamer in the survey.

“So, are 72% of Americans paying for Netflix? Hell no. Their numbers have never shown anything like that,” Leichtman said.

The Pew Research Center survey also found that about a quarter of people are sharing passwords for streaming services. That practice is particularly prevalent among young adults.

The Pew Research Center survey found 83% of people watch streaming services in some capacity.

Over half, 55%, only stream without subscribing to cable or satellite.

Pew Research Center found 36% subscribe to cable or satellite TV.

And 28% of Americans both subscribe to cable or satellite TV and watch streamers.

Leichtman said the streaming audience is probably closer to nine in 10, and he said around half of people still pay for some kind of live TV, when factoring in the internet-based services.

But Leichtman said cord-cutting might be misunderstood by some folks, as he contends cable companies are no longer cable companies as we grew to understand them in the 1980s or ‘90s.

Cable companies are now internet companies.

“Heck, go to Comcast website and try to find out how to get a live TV service. Do the same for Altice or even Spectrum to a lesser degree. You're going to find that that's not what they're selling. They're not cable companies. They're broadband companies, and they're more aggressively selling cellphone service than they are selling TV service,” he said.

Robert Thompson, the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, said the new poll from the Pew Research Center does illustrate a cultural shift that’s been underway for a while.

“And I especially notice it among younger people,” he said.

Thompson said a lot of his students not only do most of their watching via streaming services, but many don’t even own a TV.

He said a lot of his students stream on phones and computers. They might watch an actual television set when they go home to see their parents.

Thompson said this shift has happened quickly.

And the shared experience of TV viewing has fragmented “into a million little pieces.”

He said the broadcast era wasn’t that long ago.

“When 1979 turned into 1980, less than a quarter of the country had cable. So, we were still very much a three-network era back then,” Thompson said.

For decades, Americans tuned into TV programs at the same time. Options were limited, and the audience was “feeding from the same cultural trough.”

We didn't even have VCRs to record stuff until the late 1970s, he noted.

The audience began to fragment with cable TV. By the mid-1990s, there were three 24-hour cable news channels to choose from.

“If cable started the fragmentation, the internet, of course, streaming, completely broke up the consensus audience,” Thompson said.