Blog: Pay TV - Page 5

The last minute renewal of the carriage agreement between TV Network giant Viacom and Dish Networks, the third biggest pay TV operator in the US, revealed just how much the balance of power is shifting in the US TV industry.

Today Sky announced that it is making a selection of sports content available to basic package subscribers. A new channel called Sky Sports Mix launching this summer will bring a range of sports content to all its TV customers in the UK and Ireland.

On March 14th, Comic-Con and Lionsgate jointly announced the imminent launch of Comic-Con HQ a new SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) service. The new platform will allow Beta access on the 7th of May in advance of its official launch in in June.

The Future of TV Coalition , a coalition of US Pay-TV companies whose 47 members include Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Dish Network has reacted strongly to Google’s latest attempt to enter the premium video content market (or Pay-TV market as it has largely been up until this point in time.

Amidst all the positive news about Netflix’s continuing growth story, some interesting points were touched upon in yesterday’s Netflix Q4 2015 Earnings Interview with analysts. Perhaps the most revealing meta narrative for the whole management zeitgeist was summed up Netflix’s CFO David Wells when he described the gaining the next 50 million subscribers as “a little bit harder than the first 50 million.

When Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings gave his keynote presentation yesterday at CES in Las Vegas what caught the media’s attention was the scale of the Video Subscription Service’s global ambitions. Hastings boldly announced that Netflix is now available in 130 countries, including such diverse markets as South Korea , Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Amidst all the Pay TV industry angst around ESPN, Disney’s troubled Sports-Network, a new venture has appeared which specifically aims to replicate ESPN’s business model. Activision Blizzard, the gaming publisher behind the hugely successful Call Of Duty video game is now looking to get into Pay-TV.

Over the last few years online video subscription services from the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu havekick started a revolution in premium video that is threatening to disrupt the traditional TV business to the core.