The TV App Revolution Authenticated Channel Apps And TVE Strategy
The 20,000 Foot View
Pay-TV is under assault from a pincer movement, on the one hand losing subscribers to cord cutting and on the other growth slowing due to cord-nevers (Digital Natives with no interest in subscribing to traditional pay-TV). Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others welcome these consumers with open arms. The result is a steady erosion of audience share for traditional TV operators which in turn disrupts the TV networks that rely on them for distribution. TV Everywhere (TVE) strategy is the pay-TV industry’s response to the streaming insurgents and has begotten a host of channel apps. TVE is still work in progress, racked by licensing tensions that could ultimately see studios and networks using it as a means to bypass TV operators in order to sell direct to the end user.
Key Findings
- In XXX 2015 US pay-TV companies lost XXX subscribers while online video services added XXX million new XXX of US consumers pay for Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD), rising to XXX of XXX year olds
- The XXX year old age group is the fastest growing for SVOD adoption
- SVOD has broad appeal, XXX are female compared to XXX for music subscriptions
- TVE describes an increasingly diverse mix of strategies and technologies
- Operators and networks / studios have differing, and sometimes conflicting, TVE objectives
- Channel apps reimagine what a channel represents
- Google, Facebook and Apple could all emerge as next generation operators, re-bundling individual channel apps
Companies mentioned in this report: A+E Networks, ABC, Apple, Amazon, AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Direct TV, Dish, Fox Networks, Foxtel, Google, HBO, Hulu, NBC, Netflix, Sky, TED, Telenet, Time Warner Cable, the Huffington Post, The Walt Disney Company, The Weather Company, Vevo, Xfinity