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            2015            pay-TV companies lost            subscribers while            video services added            million new           
           of US consumers pay for Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD), rising to            of            year olds 
• The            year            age group is the fastest            for SVOD adoption
• SVOD has            appeal,            are female compared to            music subscriptions
• TVE describes            increasingly diverse mix of strategies            technologies
• Operators and            / studios have differing, and            conflicting, TVE objectives
• Channel apps            what a channel represents
• Google, Facebook            Apple could all emerge as            generation operators, re-bundling individual channel           

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