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Tag: cable tv

  • Streaming TV Only 26% of Market But Growing Fast

    Streaming TV Only 26% of Market But Growing Fast

    Streaming TV may be constantly in the news, with a new service seemingly cropping up every week, but it still comprises a minority of the market.

    Netflix, HBO Max, YouTube, Hulu and others are growing in popularity, but they still don’t match more traditional TV options. According to CNN, the latest Nielsen data shows the streaming market accounts for a mere 26% of the American TV market.

    In contrast, traditional broadcast TV accounts for 25% of the market, while cable TV still accounts for 39%. An additional 9% is covered by “other,” including VOD and DVD players.

    Another significant difference between traditional and streaming TV is the engagement of the viewers. According to Nielsen’s data, streaming subscribers tend to be active viewers, intentionally seeking out and watching specific programs. In contrast, broadcast viewers are often more passive, leaving the TV on in the background or casually channel surfing.

    No one knows how long it will take for streaming TV to overtake traditional options, but the degree of subscriber engagement is a promising sign for the future of the market.

  • New Law Will Limit Cable TV Fees, Address Local Blackouts

    New Law Will Limit Cable TV Fees, Address Local Blackouts

    According to Consumer Reports, the House and Senate have passed a bill that would limit how cable companies charge hidden fees and phantom rentals to jack up bills.

    Customers have chafed for years at hidden fees and add-ons that take their low-priced, promotional cable bill and double or triple it. Cable companies will advertise a low-priced package, or tout the fact they have not raised prices in so many months, and then use hidden fees to circumvent the advertised price.

    As a result, Consumer Reports has been lobbying for laws that would limit how the cable companies operate and the fees they can charge.

    “People across the country are fed up with all of the extra fees they pay each month that keep growing more costly year after year,” said Jonathan Schwantes, Consumer Reports’ senior policy counsel. “Cable companies shouldn’t be allowed to disguise the true cost of service by charging a long list of add-on fees that aren’t clearly disclosed when customers sign up for service. These reforms will bring fairness and clarity to pay-TV billing, so we can find a plan that fits our budget without having to worry about getting stuck paying hidden fees.”

    The newly passed bill—which merely needs President Trump’s signature to become law—will force cable companies to provide an itemized list of fees and charges, and give customers a 24-hour window to cancel without penalty. The bill will also ban pay-TV companies from charging customers for equipment they don’t use. For example, many companies who bundle TV and internet service will charge customers rental fees for an internet router even if they’re using their own and never use the company’s.

    On the downside, the bill only applies to pay-TV companies, as well as companies and plans that bundle pay-TV with internet service. It does not yet apply to strictly broadband companies with no pay-TV option, who are just as guilty of these practices.

    Another provision of the bill would also help alleviate local station blackouts that often occur “when broadcasters and TV service providers can’t agree on terms for carrying local or cable channels. The law will mandate good-faith negotiations between the parties during these so-called retransmission consent negotiations.” The bill will also allow satellite TV providers to offer network programming in markets that do not have local broadcasts.

    The legislation is a step in the right direction for reigning in what has become predatory practices by the cable TV industry. Here’s to hoping the legislation catches up with the broadband industry as well.

  • Amazon Prime’s Rapid Growth Could Soon Make Cable TV Obsolete

    Amazon Prime’s Rapid Growth Could Soon Make Cable TV Obsolete

    Cable TV is on the decline while the number of Amazon Prime subscribers has increased rapidly since last year. One estimate reveals that nearly a quarter of the U.S. population are Amazon Prime subscribers and the numbers are steadily on the rise.  However, can it make cable TV obsolete?

    The Rise of Amazon

    Amazon Prime had 66 million subscribers at the end of 2016 and a whopping 79 million subscribers to date. Meanwhile, the number of households subscribed to cable TV has decreased by nearly 5 million in the last seven years.

    The modest decrease in cable TV subscriptions coupled with the increase of Amazon Prime subscriptions paints a rather vivid picture of the future of home television viewing. If this trend continues, Amazon Prime will have more subscribers than cable or satellite TV by next year. The chance of this overhaul happening in the near future is high.

    In an attempt to be more accessible to everyone, Amazon is now coaxing lower-income American households with a discounted service. The company is offering monthly payment options to cater to those who are not willing to fork over $99 for the annual subscription.

    Main Reason for Subscribing

    Looking at the Amazon Prime’s impressive increase in memberships, it’s easy to conclude that the service will soon render cable TV obsolete. However, it is important to consider the reason behind Amazon Prime’s growing subscriber base.

    Business Insider reports that Amazon Prime’s video service isn’t the main reason why people are subscribing. The growth in subscriptions is mostly due to the company’s impressive delivery service which is relatively fast and reliable.

    That being said, cable TV isn’t directly threatened by a competitor in the same service field. It is likely that a household can subscribe to Amazon Prime while still enjoying the perks of having cable TV.

    Other Competition

    Although Amazon Prime’s main catch is not home entertainment, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t working on building a subscriber base using that platform in the near future. Currently, Amazon Prime isn’t directly battling with cable TV – or at least, not yet.

    Image result for amazon prime vs netflix statistics

    The service has to compete with other streaming services including Netflix and Hulu. A recent report suggests that Amazon Prime is gunning to become a major player in the streaming market and has already spent $4.5 billion on video this year.

  • Sasha Alexander And Angie Harmon’s Show Gets Renewed On TNT

    It’s been announced that Rizzoli and Isles has been picked up by TNT for another season. The police procedural starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander proved to be one of TNT’s more successful shows. According to TNT, the show “finished this past summer as basic cable’s No. 1 series and has ranked as one of basic cable’s Top 5 series for five consecutive years, including 2014 to date”. The sixth season of Rizzoli and Isles is slated to air next summer.

    Rizzoli and Isles is just the latest show to be renewed by TNT. Last week, they announced that they will be picking up the Sean Bean vehicle Legends for a 10-episode second season. Other shows that were picked up by the network are the dramas Major Crimes, Falling Skies, The Last Ship, and Murder in the First.

    Based on the work of crime novelist Tess Gerritsen, Rizzoli and Isles stars Harmon as the tough Boston police detective Jane Rizolli and Sasha Alexander as the smart medical examiner Maura Isles. Despite being polar opposites, the two offbeat friends work together to solve crime in the streets of Boston.

    Rizzoli and Isles premiered in 2010, with the show starting out strong in the ratings. It immediately became one of TNT’s more well-known shows, and consistently generated good numbers for the network.

    Both Harmon and Alexander have TV backgrounds, appearing as regulars in other crime shows before working together in Rizzoli and Isles. Prior to her work in Rizzoli and Isles, Harmon’s last big TV role was as a regular cast member in the long-running police drama Law and Order. Alexander on the other hand, is known for her role as Special Agent Caitlin Todd in NCIS.

    One of Alexander’s earlier roles was in Dawson’s Creek as Gretchen Witter, which she played for a total of 20 episodes.

  • Pay-TV Subscriptions to Top 1 Billion This Year

    Pay-TV Subscriptions to Top 1 Billion This Year

    Over the past few years, as the internet’s profile has risen as a mainstream entertainment service, cable and satellite providers have seen subscription numbers dropping. At the same time, purveyors of IPTV services have been seeing an influx of subscribers.

    The rise of IPTV has helped the overall pay-TV market grow throughout the past two years, with subscriptions hitting nearly 900 million near the end of 2013. Now, a new report from ABI Research shows that pay-TV subscriptions could hit over 1 billion during the coming year.

    The new report estimates that pay-TV subscriptions will rise to 1.1 billion during 2014. This would bring in just over $320 billion in revenue for pay-TV providers. This represents a significant rise from the nearly $250 billion that ABI estimates pay-TV operators took in during 2013.

    “Increasing FTTH (fiber to the home) subscriber base and bundled subscriber base of telcos are boosting the IPTV market,” said Jake Saunders, practice director of core forecasting at ABI. “ABI Research forecasts that the IPTV subscriber base will grow to 161 million subscribers in 2019 accounting for 15% of overall pay-TV market.”

    While cable subscriptions in the U.S. and other emerging markets are declining, ABI reports that emerging markets are still seeing cable TV growth, especially in Asia and South America. Along with cable and IPTV growth overall, Africa is seeing incredible growth in the pay digital terrestrial television (DTT) market. ABI estimates that DTT subscriptions rose 45% in Africa during the previous year.

  • IPTV Growing as Cable, Satellite Begin to Fade

    IPTV Growing as Cable, Satellite Begin to Fade

    Last month it was revealed that the number of cable subscribers in the U.S. is dropping. In addition, the percentage of U.S. households that exclusively watch over-the-air TV programming is down to only 7%. These statistics suggest that the internet, and TV programming over the internet are becoming more popular than ever.

    Market analyst firm IHS this week released research showing that IPTV is now growing. IPTV plans, which include Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s Uverse, gained 398,000 subscribers during the second quarter of 2013. This is close to the number of subscribers pay-TV (cable, satellite, and IPTV) providers lost during the same quarter – 352,000. IHS predicts that this year will be the first that pay-TV subscriptions show an overall decline, down to 100.77 million subscribers from last year’s 100.89. IPTV now has 11% of the total pay-TV market share.

    “Of the three segments in the U.S. pay-TV market, the IPTV sector is enjoying growth, especially in urban areas where it is luring subscribers away from satellite,” said Erik Brannon, U.S. television analyst at IHS. “In particular, satellite’s lack of a true high-speed Internet service or a triple-play bundling option puts it at a disadvantage when competing against IPTV and cable. Cable, meanwhile, has its own problems, including disagreements between operators and content providers over rising programming costs that squeeze customers in the middle.”

    The causes for the shift away from pay-TV cited by IHS are the same ones discussed by other analysts and industry watchers. People cutting out cable (or young people who never sign up for cable) in favor on internet access to Netflix, Hulu, and other services will play a larger role in the future decline of pay-TV. In addition, the current high price of pay-TV services.

  • Pac-12 Network Turns To Social Media To Challenge DirecTV

    The televising of college football is big, big business. Remember all that college sports conference realignment stuff? That was driven by college football, as conference members scrambled over each other in an effort to align themselves with a conference that has a strong television deal. The development of conference channels also became a vogue thing to do, with, most notably, the SEC’s partnership with ESPN.

    That being said, not all things are equal in the land of securing a broadcast outlet when these conferences launch their channels. Much like the CBS/Time Warner dispute–which, should be noted, is an argument over money that only hurts the subscribers–one college athletic conference is having some trouble getting on DirecTV, and so, they’ve decided to fight back by using a little bit of social media. The conference in question, the Pac-12, has come up with an idea suggesting fans of the conference’s teams who have DirecTV should cancel their subscription and find a provider that carries the Pac-12 Channel.

    The details were revealed in a release posted at the Pac-12’s official site:

    Entering its second season of covering Pac-12 football, Pac-12 Networks is distributed on more than 50 video providers across the country, including three of the four largest. Despite being offered the same deal that all of the other providers have agreed to, DirecTV remains unwilling to reach an agreement, and the “Compare” campaign is the latest step by Pac-12 Networks to urge fans to drop DirecTV and switch to another provider.

    The campaign consists of 30-second spots that poke fun at DirecTV’s decision to not carry the network. Here are a few of the videos being used:


    Seeing how there are 12 teams in the Pac-12, there are 9 more videos, all of which make a play on the team’s mascot. Well, except for the Utah copy. Instead of showing Utes, they just show the state of Utah. Keep it simple, and all that. If you’d like to see the rest of the videos, you can so at the Pac-12’s site. With that in mind, how many Pac-12 fans would have to leave DirecTV before they reconsidered?

  • Apple to Cut Deal With Time Warner Cable [RUMOR]

    Last year, as rumors of an Apple HDTV were coming in weekly, the project was reportedly put on hold as cable companies balked. Companies such as Time Warner and Comcast, which has established (and often region-exclusive) distribution channels, were not yet willing for Apple to drag the cable industry into the online future the way it did for the music industry. This week, it appears that Apple is finally making some headway, at least with one cable operator.

    Bloomberg is reporting that Apple and Time Warner Cable (TWC) are closing in on a deal to allow TWC subscribers to access cable channels from Apple TV devices. Bloomberg’s unnamed “people with knowledge of the negotiations” said the companies will reportedly announce the deal “within a few months.” The report also cites two unnamed sources “familiar with the matter” as saying Apple will hire Pete Distad, SVP of marketing and distribution at Hulu, to help its cause with cable companies.

    Last month, Apple announced that both WatchESPN and HBO Go had been added to Apple TV. Those channels join Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming options already on the platform, and WatchESPN supplements the sports programming Apple TV already offers through deals with the MLB, NBA, and NHL.

    TWC announced last month that a TWC TV app will be coming to Xbox 360 consoles later this year, enabling the same type of streaming Apple TVs are rumored to be getting. Streaming TWC programming on an Xbox 360 will require a subscription to both TWC and Xbox Live Gold.

    (via Bloomberg)

  • Ricky Naputi: 900 lb. Man Gets New TLC Show

    It’s well-known that a large number of Americans are overweight, and predictions seem to indicate that the issue will only get worse as time goes on. What isn’t as well-known is that the U.S. territory of Guam may be even worse.

    This week, cable TV channel TLC aired a documentary highlighting one man’s weight difficulties on the island of Guam. Titled 900 Pound Man: The Race Against Time, the documentary chronicles Ricky Naputi’s struggle with his size, the troubles he encounters in finding help, and the difficulty he has sticking to doctors’ recommendations.

    Naputi is, for the most part, bedridden and has not been able to go out of the house or shower for “years.” The documentary follows him and his wife as they seek out specialists and try to arrange for a flight to the U.S. mainland, where Naputi could receive life-saving surgery.

    Though Naputi’s weight is disabling, he’s nowhere near the heaviest person ever recorded. The record for world’s heaviest man currently belongs to a U.S. man named Jon Minnoch, who weighed around 1,400 lb. at his peak. He also holds the record for weight loss, after he shed 920 lb. Minnoch died in 1983 at the age of 41 weighing nearly 800 lb.

  • Intel TV Service Delayed by Cable Companies

    Intel‘s new push into the cable TV arena could be delayed significantly, if cable companies have their way. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Intel’s plan to offer cable TV over the internet is on hold until content-licensing agreements can be ironed out with cable companies.

    Citing unnamed “people familiar with [Intel’s] plans,” the journal reports that the new cable service might be available by mid or late 2013.

    Content negotiations with cable companies are rumored to have been a stumbling block for Apple’s HDTV device as well. In September 2012 it became clear that a fall launch of the Apple TV set would not pan out. Cable companies were rumored to be insisting that Apple devices be rented to consumers through cable companies, and that they have a hand in the development of the software running on the device – a point on which Apple almost certainly won’t budge.

    For Intel, the holdup could be the company’s plans to offer TV channel subscriptions a la carte, rather than exclusively in bundles. Cable companies have enjoyed content monopolies for years, shoring up less-viewed channels and niche programming with the package deals. By once again preventing cable TV from catching up to technology, the companies risk losing out to a burgeoning world of content networks and studios popping up online.

  • New Apple TV Could be a DVR and Set-Top Box

    If anyone can fix the DVR, it’s Apple. The company has been trying to impact the way consumers watch TV for years with the Apple TV, but without cable TV content the device doesn’t do much that other online streaming content boxes such as the Roku HD or many Blu-Ray players can’t also do. This week it was revealed that Apple is in talks with cable companies to allow an Apple device to be used as a DVR and set-top box. Now the details of just what Apple has in mind have been revealed.

    According to a Wall Street Journal report, an Apple device used as a DVR would allow customers to store TV shows in the cloud and begin watching them at any time, even if the show is still airing live. It would also allow users to share TV shows over social networks and play content from other Apple devices, such as an iPhone or iPad.

    The report also states that such a device would, of course, use an icon-rich iOS user interface. TIVO was hedged out by cable companies that prefer their customers use DVRs that allow those companies to more tightly control how content is consumed. Since then, the user interface and product design of DVRs has taken a back seat to digital rights management (DRM) and advertising considerations. This issue is only now beginning to be improved upon, though cable customers still have little choice in what DVR they receive from a cable company.

    Of course, cable companies make money by forcing customers to rent DVR cable boxes. However, Apple has proven with iTunes that it can single-handedly change an industry and drag it into the future. Perhaps cable companies, who are coming up against streaming services such as Netflix and technologies that invalidate their business model, will see this outreach from Apple as a lifeline and turning point for the cable industry. Only time will tell whether Apple will provide the restrictions that cable companies prefer to put on their content or open that content up to ideas such as an a-la-carte pricing model. An Apple “channel” store instead of an app store would be a step in the consumer-friendly direction.

    What sort of device the Wall Street Journal was referring to isn’t clear. It seems obvious that Apple will implement such features into the Apple TV if it can, providing customers with an inexpensive way to upgrade their cable-viewing experience. Rumors of an Apple HDTV set have been swirling for more than a year, though, and it wouldn’t be surprising for Apple to market an all-in-one solution for TV viewing.

  • Nielsen Says People Aren’t Watching TV Anymore

    Nielsen Says People Aren’t Watching TV Anymore

    It’s bad news for advertisers and television studios alike. Nielsen says many people just aren’t watching the old boob tube anymore. An interesting metric for Nielsen to record, the number of people who watch television at least once a month, declined seven percent last year.

    This data comes from over fifty countries. Conversely, the number of folks who viewed an online video increased to 84%. That means, at this current point in time, more people are watching online videos than preprogrammed television shows. It’s definitely a shift, especially considering that television has been viewed as a staple in evolved societies, much like running water and electricity.

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    The data from Nielsen suggests that many people are choosing to watch video content online instead of channel surfing and searching for something to watch the old fashioned way. Of course, this means a decline in subscription for the local cable providers. Perhaps some folks have traded the expense of cable for faster internet connections and wi-fi capability.

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    With such a rich variety of choices online, many consumers choose to spend their time doing things other than watching traditional television programming. Whether it’s watching streaming videos, social sharing, networking, or just plain surfing the web, people are choosing the internet over television. I think it’s a positive trend.