That also isn’t a surprise, since it fits the no-growth trend we’ve seen from pay TV for several years now.

For the record, SNL Kagan figures that the U.S. pay TV industry — cable, telco and satellite — grew by a teeny-tiny 46,000 subscribers last year.

That’s basically negligible given an installed base of 100 million pay TV households. But it’s not a decline.

And it’s also in line with what we’ve seen from the industry for a while, where subscriptions go up and down each quarter — usually up in Q1 and Q4, and down in Q2 and Q3. And as always, it’s important to note that this is for all the pay TV platforms.

You might read today, for instance, that Kagan says the cable guys — Comcast, Time Warner Cable, etc. — lost 1.66 million customers this year. True! But the telco guys — Verizon and AT&T — and the satellite guys — Dish and DirecTV — added the same number. Hence, no growth.

As always, the real debate is about why there’s no growth. There are three standard answers, which don’t necessarily negate one another:

• 100 million pay TV customers is the size of the U.S. market, period. It’s just not going to get bigger.
• The market would be bigger if the economy was better, and more people were buying homes instead of “doubling up.”
• People are ditching pay TV for the Internet and some combination of Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, etc. And/or the population of “cord-nevers” — college grads who have grown up with Web TV and see no reason to pay for cable — is growing.

The last one is certainly worrisome for the pay TV guys, and the ones who used to boast that they see no evidence of cord-cutting are a lot more muted about it these days.

You’ll occasionally hear a top pay TV executive — like Dish’s Charlie Ergen — talk candidly about the fact that there are lots of kids, like his own, who aren’t paying for TV anymore. But as always, for right now, cord-cutters are like vegans — you may know a lot of them, but the rest of the country still eats a whole lot of Big Macs.

A deal would mark Mr. Malone’s first big investment in a U.S. cable system since selling Tele-Communications Inc. to AT&T in 1999. Charter is the eighth biggest pay-TV provider, with about four million subscribers. Charter’s stock jumped 8.3 percent in early afternoon trading in the wake of The Wall Street Journal’s report of Liberty’s expected investment.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

Heads up, cord-cutters: If you want to watch March Madness next year, you’re going to have to pay up.

The last two rounds of next year’s college basketball tournament, including the championship game, are likely to be broadcast on one of Time Warner’s Turner network channels — TBS or TNT — instead of CBS, according to Sports Business Daily and the New York Times.

CBS and Turner share coverage of the tournament, and the switch for the final games was already scheduled for 2016. No one has explained why the two companies are moving the date up by two years, but it fits a pattern we’ve seen for several years: Big-time sports events migrating from free TV to pay TV.

In 2006, Monday Night Football moved from ABC to Disney’s ESPN. If you wanted to watch much of last summer’s Olympics, you needed a pay TV subscription that gave you access to NBC Universal’s cable channels. And as SBJ’s John Ourand notes, the BCS college championships, the NBA conference finals and some baseball playoff games have all moved over to cable, as well.

The free-to-pay move serves the interests of the TV Industrial Complex in several ways: The cable networks, flush with cash from subscriber fees, can afford to pay big bucks for the rights to what is must-see TV for many people. And because it’s must-see TV for many people, it helps raise the overall value of the cable networks (Rupert Murdoch used the same strategy to turn Fox into a legitimate broadcast operation two decades ago).

And moving big-time sports to pay TV helps pay TV, period. Nielsen figures there are five million cord-cutters, or cord-nevers, and that number would presumably be much bigger if you could get sports online without paying for TV.

Which is why I’ve been waiting for Google, or Apple, or Intel, or some other TV outsider to pony up for the rights to a slate of NFL games, or some other sports franchise that millions of people have to watch, no matter where they are. Hasn’t happened yet.

(Note that if Aereo, which distributes broadcast TV over the Web without paying programmers a penny, wins its court case, then expect just about every big broadcast show — not just sports, but everything — to move from broadcast to cable networks owned by the broadcasters. Big if, though.)

Meantime, if you’re serious about college hoops and you’re serious about not paying for TV, you might still have a legal option next year.

Last year, CBS and Turner offered a $4 package that let you watch the games live on Android and iOS devices, and that option has gone away this year. This time around, you can only stream the Turner games if you’re an “authenticated” pay TV subscriber, though you can still stream the CBS games to your PC without registration.

But Turner/CBS are offering app users a free four-hour “preview” this time around. So if you’re willing to do a little planning — and if the option is still available — you could save up your preview time for the championship game, and at least watch that one for free.

That sounds like a lot of work, right? That’s what the pay TV guys are hoping you think …

Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

Scintillating, right?

This isn’t the equivalent of the Viacom/Google data dump, where people like me got to wallow in all kinds of juicy notes, emails and spreadsheets that had previously been private.

Instead, this is just a more formalized version of the argument Cablevision made last week, when it said Viacom had illegally forced it to take lots of crappy Viacom channels in order to get the ones it really wanted, like MTV and Comedy Central. You can read the whole thing, and/or peruse a highlight compilation the pay TV provider put together, at the bottom of this post.

The one really interesting part in here should be where Cablevision explains just how much more expensive it is for them to buy a handful of channels instead of taking the whole package. Their contention is that while Viacom theoretically offers its channels to distributors on an a la carte basis, it charges so much for them that there’s no practical way anyone would do that, because it’s much cheaper to take the bundle. That is, it’s a choice without a choice.

But at Viacom’s request, all the pricing information has been redacted from the complaint. So Cablevision can only say that the price difference between Viacom’s a la carte option and the bundle is something between $1 billion and $9 billion, and that that number is “more than Cablevision’s entire programming budget” for 2013.

That sounds pretty eye-popping. But without a full look at the numbers it’s hard to place that in proper context. For starters, the price difference would apply to the length of the contract, and while I think even the length of the deal may be redacted, it is almost certainly five years or more.

So whatever the price difference is, you’d need to divide it by five, or seven, or whatever, to figure out what it would actually mean to Cablevision.

Here’s what Viacom’s PR team has to say about that one, by the way:

“That figure is nothing more than rhetorical math, an inflated, irrelevant number manufactured to create artificial sticker shock. As Cablevision admits in its own filing, these numbers “do not concern actual ‘deal’ terms, but only Viacom’s initial offers” which were made at the request of Cablevision. Viacom’s ‘rate card’ prices are paid by hundreds of distributors — but never by Cablevision, which has always exploited its market clout to extract deep discounts in every contract negotiation with Viacom and every other programmer.“

Want to hear more from Viacom? Okay.

“This suit is nothing more than a hypocritical attempt by Cablevision to void a long term carriage deal they agreed to only two months ago. Cablevision is crying foul over a standard business practice that expands choice and lowers cost for consumers – a practice they use extensively to sell their own services. Cablevision received significant discount on a package of networks that account for nearly 20% of the total viewing audience. Now they want the lower price without the obligation to offer our networks to their customers. For Cablevision it’s ‘do as we say and not as we do’ – an arrogant approach all too familiar to its customers.”

But wait! There’s more!

“Although they have lower viewership than almost all of Viacom’s smaller networks, the three bundled Cablevision-controlled MSG networks cost Cablevision customers significantly more per month than Viacom’s entire offering.”

I’ll go through the complaint itself, but my hunch is there isn’t anything more revelatory in here, or Cablevision would have already made a big deal about it. I also believe that Cablevision thinks it has much more exciting stuff to show, but isn’t wheeling it out until later in the legal process. Which could take quite a while.

Again, the big picture here: If you take Cablevision at their word, they’re trying to blow up the bundling system that pay TV has used for decades (at least when it comes to wholesale deals with programmers — Cablevision says bundling TV channels it sells to retailers is a great idea). Viacom says it’s a rate negotiation.

If this thing goes all the way through the courts and Cablevision wins, it could re-order the TV business. But that scenario is going to take an awfully long time to play out, so if you’re looking for change in the TV Industrial Complex, you’re going to have to hope for someone else to make that happen. What do you say, Netflix? Apple? Google?

Here is Cablevision’s highlight reel for the complaint:

Complaint Highlights 03.07.13

Cablevision v Viacom 13 CIV 1278 Public Redacted Complaint

The question is taking on intense importance for the cable-TV business, which for decades has forced customers to subscribe to groups, or bundles, of channels — whether they wanted them or not.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Now one cable provider says it will try to break up the bundle: Cablevision has sued Viacom for “illegally forcing Cablevision to carry and pay for 14 lesser-watched ancillary networks its customers do not want.”

On the face of it, Cablevision is directly attacking the core bundling principle the industry has used for years, and continues to implement as pay-TV providers and programmers sign new, long-term deals. It is accusing Viacom of an “illegal tying arrangement in violation of the federal antitrust laws,” and if it is successful, the repercussions could be widespread and significant.

But note that the conventional wisdom in the pay-TV industry is that “tying” rules aren’t applicable to cable bundles — people have tried repeatedly to break the bundle using the courts and failed (here’s the most recent attempt, from last year). And the main remedy Cablevision seems to be seeking is to get out of a carriage agreement it signed with Viacom a few months ago, in December 2012.

If that’s the case, the suit would fit into a familiar pattern in the pay-TV business, where programmers and pay-TV providers joust with lawyers and press releases before agreeing to keep the status quo.

That seems to be what Viacom is suggesting with its response:

“At the request of distributors, Viacom and other programmers have long offered discounts to those who agree to provide additional network distribution. Many distributors take advantage of these win-win and pro-consumer arrangements. Reflecting the highly competitive cable programming business, these arrangements have been upheld by a number of federal courts and on appeal. Viacom will vigorously defend this transparent attempt by Cablevision to use the courts to renegotiate our existing two month old agreement.”

All that said, if the case does go all the way through the court system and ends up in Cablevision’s favor, then we might finally see real change in the pay-TV world: You could imagine a scenario where pay-TV providers and their customers end up paying Disney for ESPN, but not ESPN 2 or ESPN3. Or the Disney channel. Or where News Corp. (which owns this website) wouldn’t be able to require Fox News viewers to take the FX channel as well.

It’s also possible that, given all those choices, consumers might end up choosing the bundles anyway, since pay-TV buyers could experience sticker shock when they see the “real” price of unbundled programming. If ESPN is currently getting more than $5 per subscriber when it sells as part of Disney’s bundle, it’s going to have to charge a multiple of that in an on-demand world — or cut its programming costs way, way, way down.

And even that scenario will take years to play out. Which means that, in the meantime, anyone who’s looking to get into the pay-TV business right now — like, say, an Apple — is still going to have work with the bundle. That’s what Google has already worked out as it steps cautiously into the pay-TV world, and that’s what Intel is doing as it prepares its Web TV subscription service.

Here’s Cablevision’s press release:

CABLEVISION FILES FEDERAL ANTITRUST LAWSUIT AGAINST VIACOM FOR ILLEGALLY FORCING PURCHASE OF PROGRAMMING SERVICES

BETHPAGE, NY, February 26, 2013 – Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) filed an antitrust lawsuit today against Viacom (NYSE: VIA), in federal court in Manhattan, for illegally forcing Cablevision to carry and pay for 14 lesser-watched ancillary networks its customers do not want, such as Palladia, MTV Hits and VH1 Classic, in order to carry must-have networks such as Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central.

Commenting on the lawsuit and Viacom, Cablevision offered the following statement:

“The manner in which Viacom sells its programming is illegal, anti-consumer, and wrong. Viacom effectively forces Cablevision’s customers to pay for and receive little-watched channels in order to get the channels they actually want. Viacom’s abuse of its market power is not only illegal, but also prevents Cablevision from delivering the programming that its customers want and that competes with Viacom’s less popular channels.”

Cablevision’s suit contends that:

[-] Viacom abused its market power over commercially critical networks, including must-have networks such as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and MTV, to coerce Cablevision into carrying the 14 far less popular ancillary channels.

[-] Viacom coerced Cablevision by threatening to impose massive financial penalties unless Cablevision complied with Viacom’s demands.

[-] Viacom’s conduct harms Cablevision and its customers, and impairs competition by making Cablevision pay for and carry networks that many subscribers do not want to watch, while other networks are excluded from distribution, preventing Cablevision from being able to differentiate its services and harming subscribers.

Cablevision’s complaint asserts that Viacom engaged in a “per se” illegal tying arrangement in violation of the federal antitrust laws. Cablevision’s antitrust lawsuit also asserts that Viacom has engaged in unlawful “block booking,” which is a form of tying that conditions the sale of a package of rights on the purchaser’s taking of other rights. Viacom’s conduct also violates the Donnelly Act in New York State Law, which parallels federal anti-trust laws.

The complaint was filed under seal and a public version is not yet available.

Cablevision is seeking a number of remedies including:

[-] Declaratory relief voiding the December 2012 carriage agreement.

[-] A permanent injunction barring Viacom from conditioning carriage of any or all of its Core networks on Cablevision’s licensing any or all of Viacom’s ancillary networks.

[-] To effectuate the permanent relief, a requirement that Viacom permit Cablevision to carry the Core networks and ancillary products on terms pending negotiation of a new, lawful agreement

[-] Treble damages and legal fees.

Viacom’s eight core networks:

MTV
MTV2
Nickelodeon
VH1
Spike
TV Land
Comedy Central
BET

Viacom’s 14 ancillary networks:

Centric
CMT
MTV Hits
MTV Tr3s
Nick Jr.
Nicktoons
Palladia
Teen Nick
VH1 Classic
VH1 Soul
Logo*
CMT Pure Country**
Nick 2**
MTV Jams**

*Optimum East Only
**Optimum West Only

Antitrust Legal Background
[-] Federal antitrust laws protect competition. By protecting competition, antitrust laws secure lower prices, higher quality, and other benefits for consumers.

[-] The antitrust laws prohibit tying, where a powerful firm wields its leverage from a product in one market, called the “tying” product, to compel a customer to take another product, called the “tied” product, when that customer would have preferred instead to take a product that competes with the “tied” product.

[-] The reason antitrust law prohibits such tie-ins is to protect competition and consumers. If powerful firms can leverage their power from one market to another, they can insulate the tied product from competition. Forcing customers such as Cablevision to take Viacom networks instead of competing networks, in turn, hurts consumers because they get less for what they pay for video services.

Cablevision officials indicated that there would be no immediate disruption in programming offerings pending the resolution of this matter.

So what does Microsoft plan to do when it replaces its own gaming console? We asked Xbox head Yusuf Mehdi when he stopped by the D: Dive Into Media conference last week, along with Nancy Tellem, the former CBS executive hired to build up Xbox’s video business.

You can see what they had to say below, in the full-length version of their interview. Warning: Neither Mehdi or Tellem wanted to spill much (then again, they didn’t promise a “launch” event, so you can’t blame them).

But you can read between the lines and get a sense of where they’re headed: While lots of people are interested in lightweight casual games and low-cost machines that can play them, Microsoft seems committed to the idea of a heavy-duty machine with lots of proprietary bells and whistles. So you shouldn’t expect an Apple TV-sized box, for instance.

Tellem, who is building a full-fledged studio in L.A. to create shows, series and events for Xbox, is noncommittal as well (likely because she is still figuring it out). But she is talking about the same kinds of ideas: Video that isn’t just proprietary to Xbox, but that takes advantage of the device’s hardware and processing power. Assume that once she gets going, for instance, she’ll create stuff that takes advantage of Microsoft’s Kinect motion sensors.

One big difference between Sony and Microsoft is the way the two companies are positioning their machines: While Sony’s customers spend plenty of time streaming video on the PS3 (they log more Netflix hours than Xbox users), Microsoft is much more explicit about using the Xbox as an entertainment device, period.

Which is why it’s interesting that Microsoft has decided, at least for now, not to go ahead and simply become a pay-TV provider, like Intel says it will do this year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130221/ok-microsoft-whats-your-next-game-machine-going-to-look-like/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130220/intel-inside-your-tv-the-chip-guys-want-to-become-cable-guys/ http://allthingsd.com/20130220/intel-inside-your-tv-the-chip-guys-want-to-become-cable-guys/#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:28:23 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=296478 Who’s going to take on the cable guys? Lots of really big, powerful tech companies with heaps of clout and money — Google, Apple and Microsoft, for starters — have looked at the pay-TV business and decided it doesn’t make sense for them to try to really compete.

But Intel says it’s going to do it, starting this year.

That was the most important takeaway from Intel Media head Erik Huggers’s appearance at D: Dive Into Media last week. You can see the entire interview below.

And for those of you who like to read: While Huggers wouldn’t go into lots of detail, the BBC transplant gave us a pretty good advance of what Intel thinks it can do:

• Launch a new Web video service, with a new brand, that combines all or most of the channels pay TV customers are used to getting, along with programming from the Web — at prices that are close to what the pay-TV guys are charging today.
• Add a new user interface that is significantly better than the ones people get now from their cable guys, along with features like “catch-up” viewing.
• Roll out a new Intel-based set-top box, which would include a sensor that could “see” people in their living rooms.

That’s the first time Intel has ever commented publicly about its plans, which have generated a lot of skepticism in the TV industry. Conventional wisdom among programmers I’ve talked to is that Intel has yet to demonstrate that it’s truly serious about pay TV, by pulling out its checkbook and paying up for the stuff it will need.

And even if Intel does get programming deals, convincing consumers that the stuff it’s selling is worth ditching their current service for will be a challenge. And that all-seeing eye on the TV box (even if it does come with a shutter you can pull down) …

But consumers and critics have been crying out for one of the tech giants to take on the pay-TV guys for a long time. Now Intel swears it will deliver. Grab your popcorn.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130220/intel-inside-your-tv-the-chip-guys-want-to-become-cable-guys/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130212/erik-huggers-makes-his-case-for-intels-web-tv-service/ http://allthingsd.com/20130212/erik-huggers-makes-his-case-for-intels-web-tv-service/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:05:54 +0000 Mike Isaac http://allthingsd.com/?p=294112 Finally, Intel’s worst-kept secret is out in the open. Intel will be launching a Web TV service sometime this year.

But can the chip company upend some of the initial concerns before actually getting the service off the ground?

In conversation with Peter Kafka and Walt Mossberg at D: Dive Into Media on Tuesday, corporate VP of Intel Media Erik Huggers tried to make the case that yes, the hardware company can make a compelling case to market Web TV to consumers.

But it’s an uphill battle. The service requires purchasing a new box (the name of which is yet to be announced), which Huggers says is needed to deliver “the full experience” Intel wants. That’s opposed to just creating software for existing hardware like tablets and mobile phones, though Huggers suggested Intel may offer additional different experiences for, say, mobile devices.

Huggers also said he thinks Intel can deliver its pay TV service via the Internet without its users going over the data caps that are increasingly common throughout the industry. In other words, you’ve got a whole swath of new TV watchers now sucking down bandwidth at far faster rates than before, but Intel believes that users won’t come up against those walls.

And Intel won’t be offering “a la carte” programming, either. In other words, expect bundles of programming like those offered with other major TV packages. But Huggers’s pitch is for a better bundle, smarter and more well-curated.

“If bundles are bundled right … I think there is real value in that,” he said.

Perhaps the biggest marketing point is also Intel’s most difficult sell: The built-in camera that comes with Intel’s new mystery box. It watches your movements and TV viewing habits with the aim of personalizing the way your household watches television — not to mention being much more helpful to those in the ad biz doing the targeting.

“My kids may watch programming geared toward them, and I’ll watch programming geared toward me,” Huggers said. “If there’s a way to distinguish who is watching what, advertisers can then target ads at the proper parties.”

Huggers’ “personalization” talk was the best way to sell that pitch to potential Web TV viewers, but obviously the practice raises massive privacy concerns.

Perhaps the largest sticking point of all is, it isn’t a “value play” by Intel, as Huggers put it. Meaning it won’t necessarily be cheaper than any of the existing offerings in the field.

So in a nutshell, Huggers wants you to buy a great-looking box with a superior UI and potentially personalized content streams. That’s a tough pitch, to say the least. We’ll see if Intel is in it for the long haul if users aren’t immediately convinced.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said. “It’ll take time.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130212/erik-huggers-makes-his-case-for-intels-web-tv-service/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20130211/dish-chairman-i-think-people-are-cutting-the-cord/ http://allthingsd.com/20130211/dish-chairman-i-think-people-are-cutting-the-cord/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:12:47 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=293989 Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen is willing to say something few others in the pay TV business will concede.

“I think people are cutting the cord,” Ergen said at D: Dive Into Media, adding that it’s a generational thing, but soon to be a big thing. He noted that, for years, phone companies talked about how customers weren’t giving up their landlines.

There’s a reason why cigarette companies give out their product on college campuses, Ergen said. (Do they really still do that?)

“I think we ought to be hooking people on pay TV when they are young,” Ergen said. “If we are getting run out of town, I want to get in front of that.”

You can either fight change or embrace it, Ergen said.

“I believe it is less risky, long-term, to embrace change,” Ergen said.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130211/dish-chairman-i-think-people-are-cutting-the-cord/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130131/hbo-go-is-coming-to-apple-tv-why-isnt-everything-coming-to-apple-tv/ http://allthingsd.com/20130131/hbo-go-is-coming-to-apple-tv-why-isnt-everything-coming-to-apple-tv/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:23:22 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=290674 As Bloomberg reports, sometime this year, Apple TV users will be able to watch HBO shows — if they’re already subscribing to HBO via a pay-cable provider.

In other words, HBO will port its popular HBO Go app to Apple TV, just like it has already done with Roku and Microsoft’s Xbox.

For the record, no comment from Apple. And here’s a non-comment comment from HBO: “We’ve said we would like HBO GO accessible on all preferred platforms so we are always having discussions with a variety of companies.”

Anyway, when it does come, it will be a nice extra for HBO subscribers. Because HBO Go has a much deeper catalog than you can get from the HBO on-demand service you get via cable and satellite.

But that’s about it.*

And if you want to start imagining that this is a precursor to HBO actually selling itself over the Web on an a la carte basis, well, I can’t stop you. But you’re wrong: HBO isn’t ditching the pay-TV bundle anytime soon, because it thinks that bundle works really well. And so does HBO’s owner, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes.

You can have a lot of fun arguing with the HBO guys about why they think that, when so many of us Internet geniuses are convinced they’re wrong. And that’s certainly going to come up when we talk to HBO president Eric Kessler next month at our Dive Into Media conference.

But here’s another question:  Why isn’t everyone on Apple TV right now? Or more precisely, why doesn’t Apple open its box to outside developers, the same way Roku has?

Opening up the platform to the rest of the world sure seemed to work well for the iPhone (recall that the App Store didn’t show up until the iPhone had been in the market for a year). But, right now, Apple TV has a grand total of nine outside apps (one of which comes from The Wall Street Journal, which, like this site, is owned by News Corp.).

Why hasn’t Apple let a thousand TV apps bloom? Dunno. I get the sense that Tim Cook and company are very particular about the way Apple TV apps look and work, down to the pixel. But you can be very serious about quality control and still manage to get more than nine apps on your box, if you want to.

So there has to be another reason. But maybe not a permanent one. If I had to bet, I’d say we’ll see Apple open up its TV box a whole lot sooner than HBO goes a la carte.

*Apple TV is pretty portable, so, depending on the way that HBO and the pay-TV guys handle their login/passwords, I can imagine a scenario where you bring your box to someone’s house who doesn’t have HBO, and set it up so you can watch “Girls” on their big screen. That would be nice, too.**

**It will be interesting to compare and contrast the video quality that HBO Go/Apple TV/broadband delivers versus an HD cable picture. On the cheapo set + Time Warner Cable set-up that I’ve got at home, I’ve noticed that “The Daily Show” on Hulu/Apple TV is good, but notably a bit more “computery” than the picture I get via Comedy Central’s HD feed.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130131/hbo-go-is-coming-to-apple-tv-why-isnt-everything-coming-to-apple-tv/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130118/despite-media-companies-best-efforts-tv-everywhere-is-nowhere/ http://allthingsd.com/20130118/despite-media-companies-best-efforts-tv-everywhere-is-nowhere/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:16:50 +0000 Shalini Ramachandran http://allthingsd.com/?p=286900 People are streaming online video more than ever before but only 17 percent of pay TV subscribers have watched cable programming online using so-called “TV Everywhere” services, according to a new study.

The study, from research firm GfK Media, is the latest bad news for big media companies’ TV Everywhere initiative, which is aimed at reinforcing the value of traditional cable subscriptions. But since its launch four years ago, the effort has been plagued by delays in launch as a result of difficult rights negotiations between various entertainment companies and pay TV operators — cable, satellite and phone companies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130118/despite-media-companies-best-efforts-tv-everywhere-is-nowhere/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121218/meet-the-man-who-wants-to-blow-up-the-tv-business-dish-networks-charlie-ergen-comes-to-dive-into-media/ http://allthingsd.com/20121218/meet-the-man-who-wants-to-blow-up-the-tv-business-dish-networks-charlie-ergen-comes-to-dive-into-media/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:44:54 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=278903 Charlie Ergen brings TV into 14 million houses, which means he’s got a very nice business that has made him a billionaire.

But while lots of pay-TV operators are happy to keep things the way they are, Ergen keeps trying to blow them up: The Dish Network co-founder and chairman is constantly fighting with the rest of the TV Industrial Complex, in disputes that often end up in court.

His most recent and prominent battle is also the most important one: Dish’s new “Auto Hop” technology lets satellite TV subscribers automatically skip commercials, and that has both advertisers and TV networks in fits, for obvious reasons.

But that’s just one of Ergen’s recent adventures. He has also bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy in an attempt to take on Netflix, engaged in bruising battles with Cablevision and its AMC Networks spinoff, and rattled his saber against ESPN and its ever-increasing sports fees.

Oh. He’s also talking to Google, and everyone else, about getting into the wireless business.

All of which means the former blackjack and poker player is someone everyone in the media world watches very, very closely, even though he doesn’t say much in public. Which means we’re very excited to interview him at our D: Dive Into Media conference in February.

Ergen will be joining an all-star cast on Feb. 11 and 12 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen, Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith, Intel media head Erik Huggers and Samsung media head David Eun, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos (and guest), New Republic owner Chris Hughes, and USA Today publisher Larry Kramer.

And there’s more to come! Stay tuned. Meanwhile, we’re getting close to showtime, so make your reservations now.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121218/meet-the-man-who-wants-to-blow-up-the-tv-business-dish-networks-charlie-ergen-comes-to-dive-into-media/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121204/netflix-inks-deal-for-first-run-disney-films/ http://allthingsd.com/20121204/netflix-inks-deal-for-first-run-disney-films/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:01:40 +0000 Kristin Jones http://allthingsd.com/?p=275025 Netflix Inc. has inked an agreement with Walt Disney Co. that will make first-run Disney films available to its subscribers in a pay-TV window. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Under the multi-year licensing agreement, Netflix will be the sole U.S. subscription-TV service for first-run Disney films, beginning with Disney’s 2016 theatrical releases.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121204/netflix-inks-deal-for-first-run-disney-films/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121203/the-hardware-guys-meet-the-content-guys-intels-huggers-samsungs-eun-coming-to-d-dive-into-media/ http://allthingsd.com/20121203/the-hardware-guys-meet-the-content-guys-intels-huggers-samsungs-eun-coming-to-d-dive-into-media/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:00:15 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=274373

At our D: Dive into Media conference in February, we’ll be talking to people who make amazing content, the people who make a living selling amazing content and the people who help distribute all of that stuff.

But if you want to figure out the future of media, you also have to talk to the people who make the boxes and gadgets you’ll use to consume all of that content.

That’s why we’re very happy to hear at Dive into Media from two heavyweights with important new roles: Intel’s Erik Huggers, corporate vice president at Intel Media, and Samsung’s David Eun, executive vice president for global media.

Intel’s chips have been powering entertainment boxes for a long time. Now the company is reportedly getting ready to plunge directly into the pay-TV business itself by trying to cut deals with cable programmers and rolling out a next-generation set-top box of its own.

Huggers, who used to run the BBC’s digital efforts, is heading up that push, but hasn’t talked about it publicly yet. For now, the company says his efforts are “focused on exploring new ways to access, interact with and share the latest in digital entertainment.” We’ll get a chance to figure out what that really means when he gets on our stage.

And Samsung is already a huge deal in the media world, given its position of power in both the TV and mobile markets. Eun, a tech and media veteran (Google, Time Warner, NBC, AOL), is supposed to leverage that clout to bring software and services to his company’s devices.

Now he’s trying to expand the company’s presence in Silicon Valley, where he’s opening up a new outpost in an effort to build out digital content and services. His Dive appearance will be his first public opportunity to make his case to tech and media hotshots.

Huggers and Eun are joining an all-star lineup in February. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen and Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith.

And we’ve got more great names to announce very soon: Watch this space. In the meantime, head here to find registration information for the conference, which will be held Feb. 11 and 12 at the stunning Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, California.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121203/the-hardware-guys-meet-the-content-guys-intels-huggers-samsungs-eun-coming-to-d-dive-into-media/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121107/cord-keeping-pay-tv-shrinks-for-the-quarter-stays-steady-for-the-year/ http://allthingsd.com/20121107/cord-keeping-pay-tv-shrinks-for-the-quarter-stays-steady-for-the-year/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2012 19:53:23 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=267617 What with the crazy weather and Nate Silver’s ascension to geek heaven and everything else, not a surprise that we didn’t get to this yesterday. But, for the record: The pay-TV business lost 127,000 subscribers last quarter.

So, once again: Does that mean people really are ditching Comcast, Verizon and Dish, etc., in favor of Netflix, iTunes and Hulu?

And, once again: Maybe. But you can’t prove that based on last quarter’s numbers.

As we’ve pointed out before, there’s a seasonal cycle to the pay-TV business: The cable, telco and satellite guys usually add a bunch of subscribers in Q1, lose a bunch in Q2, lose a few more in Q3 and then gain some back in Q4.

Tally up the first nine months of 2012 and the pay-TV guys are basically flat — just like they have been for the past couple years, notes Bernstein Research’s Craig Moffett (click chart to enlarge):

For the past few years, the pay-TV guys could point to the cruddy economy as the reason for their nongrowth. But now that argument doesn’t work as well. Moffett: “Household formation, while still anemic, is showing signs of recovery. Pay TV industry subscriber metrics are not. Pay TV penetration of America’s households is therefore falling, even while the number of Pay TV subscribers is still inching higher.”

So, if you’re in the “everyone I know uses the Web instead of cable” camp, that sure sounds like the data supports your argument. Moffett is still unconvinced, though: He figures the net losses come from subscribers who simply can’t afford to pay for TV or the Internet, and are getting their fix from old-fashioned rabbit-ear antennas.

Plausible?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121107/cord-keeping-pay-tv-shrinks-for-the-quarter-stays-steady-for-the-year/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120919/time-warner-cable-ok-with-theoretical-apple-tv-wont-say-apple-tv/ http://allthingsd.com/20120919/time-warner-cable-ok-with-theoretical-apple-tv-wont-say-apple-tv/#comments Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:29:53 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=252055 Time Warner Cable might be okay with something like the set-top box Apple is reportedly proposing, COO Rob Marcus said today at a Goldman Sachs conference. Marcus didn’t mention Apple by name, but said his company would consider selling TV subscriptions using third-party technology, even if “in some of those cases that may mean giving up control of the interface.” His comments echo earlier reports that Time Warner Cable has discussed the concept with Apple.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120919/time-warner-cable-ok-with-theoretical-apple-tv-wont-say-apple-tv/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120918/rupert-murdoch-makes-peace-with-pirate-google-starts-selling-movies/ http://allthingsd.com/20120918/rupert-murdoch-makes-peace-with-pirate-google-starts-selling-movies/#comments Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:00:18 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=251443 At the beginning of 2012, Rupert Murdoch was railing against Google, labeling it the “piracy leader.”

But that was January! Now Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox studio has cut a deal to sell and rent its movies and TV shows via the search giant’s YouTube and Google Play portals.

The announcement means Google has agreements with all of the major Hollywood studios. That brings the company to parity with competitors like Apple and Amazon, and it may be more symbolic than anything, since none of the digital outlets have been significant revenue generators for the studios so far.

But Fox is hoping to change that with a new digital sales push. It is cutting the price for new movies like “Prometheus” to $15 from its usual $20, and offering them earlier than it has in the past: You can buy the movie today, three weeks before it will appear on discs and pay-TV operators’ video-on-demand stores.

Fox will market “Prometheus” hard at every digital outlet it can find, including those run by Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Sony. But people familiar with the studio’s plans say it is counting on a significant assist from Google, which means you’re likely to see prominent ads for the movie on YouTube and on other Google properties. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.)

Okay. So what about the whole piracy thing? Neither Google or News Corp. officials are commenting about a rapprochement.

But last month Google did announce that it would start making it harder for pirate sites to show up in its search results, a move that drew praise from both the movie and music industries.

Perhaps that, combined with a need to shore up a flagging DVD business, was enough to change Murdoch’s mind. If so, the detente could have an impact on his other dealings with Google’s entertainment ventures, like Google TV and its Google Fiber project, both of which News Corp. has yet to support.

Alternate theory: Murdoch has simply been overwhelmed by Sergey Brin’s Google Glass specs, which he labled “genius,” after a Fashion Week event this month.

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