Pay TV providers in the US lost subscribers for the first time ever over the 12 months ending in March. Especially alarming is the slowing growth of lower-priced offers. Read more »
Can a $99 HDMI stick turn any TV into a smart device capable of AirPlay-like streaming of web content? Check out our Plair review to find out. Read more »
Fox, PBS and other broadcasters filed for a New York appeals court to revisit a crucial ruling that permitted start-up Aereo to beam their signals. The appeal raises the stakes further in a battle for the future of TV. Read more at paidContent »
A major appeals court ruling says that Aereo — which lets users watch and record live TV to mobile devices — doesn’t violate copyright law. The decision is the biggest blow yet to the existing TV business. Read more »
Aereo is exploring partnerships with internet service providers and pay-TV companies to expand its reach. The company is disrupting conventional TV models by offering a service that lets consumers watch TV on the go for $1 a day. Read more at paidContent »
Charter rejected an ad that tells people how to get over-the-air TV without paying for cable. Maybe cord cutting is a threat, after all? Read more »
Want to get rid of your big and expensive cable bundle? So does your cable company. And in that quest, it is joined by some unlikely frenemies. Read more at paidContent »
Aereo is disrupting the traditional TV model with a service that lets users subscribe to TV for a day at a time and watch in on their iPhone. Today, it expanded beyond New York City to a total of 29 counties. Read more at paidContent »
In two signs of how online media consumption is changing traditional tracking services, Nielsen will begin tracking the habits of viewers who watch TV over broadband, while Billboard will begin including YouTube music video views in its charts. Read more at paidContent »
To the frustration of consumers now used to digital distribution, the TV industry stubbornly refuses to unbundle its expensive channel packages. The CEO of upstart Aereo explains why he is taking them on. Read more »
In the fourth quarter, the traditional pay-TV industry began to show signs of severe internal stresses after having held off the immediate challenge of over-the-top video. Meanwhile the music industry fell into an internal battle over performance royalties. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
For the first time ever, the number of U.S. households paying for TV service will go down. The news comes as a tipping point in consumers’ struggles to break away from a TV industry that forces them to buy bundles of channels. Read more at paidContent »
Aereo, the disruptive TV-everywhere service that lets people watch shows on mobile devices thanks to remote miniature antennas, announced it is expanding — even as legal questions remain unresolved Read more »
A media CEO reminded people that, despite new internet distribution platforms, content owners remain in the drivers seat. He played down the idea of “cord cutters” but did acknowledge the emergence of people who have never had cable at all. Read more at paidContent »
Here’s another sign that live, over-the-air broadcast TV is heating up: The WD TV Live line of devices just got support for over-the-air tuners, enabling users to watch free HD TV and even record shows with a basic DVR feature. Check out our first look. Read more »
The DVR is back – and this time, it’s all about cord cutting: Simple.tv wants to get consumers to ditch cable with its DVR for over-the-air broadcast content that can be streamed to Rokus and iPads. But how well does the device actually work? Read more »
Jon Stewart’s Daily Show could soon be available live on the internet, if Dish Network has its way. The pay TV operator is reportedly in talks with Viacom about making its live feeds available online. The question is: how much would you pay for it? Read more »
Cable operators used to focus on TV bundles as their main selling point, and treat internet access as an add-on. A recent mailer sent out by Time Warner Cable strikes a different tone, offering users a year of free TV if they improve their Netflix experience. Read more »
Many cable TV operators still argue that cord cutting doesn’t exist, but Verizon’s FIOS TV director Maitreyi Krishnaswamy thinks it’s real, and growing. But that’s not all: Krishnaswamy is also arguing that it might change the industry by putting pressure on studios. Read more »
Tablets featured prominently in the connected consumer space, both as a product category and as a component of broader platform strategies by major OS providers Microsoft, Google and Apple. Meanwhile Facebook began laying the groundwork to add payment processing to its platform. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Anecdotal evidence suggests over-the-top video is a booming trend. But it takes technical skill, state-of-the-art broadband connections and the willingness to shell out money for both bandwidth and content subscriptions to fully integrate OTT into a household, much less consider trying to use it to cord cut. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Belying several earlier research studies, which said growth of U.S. multi-channel subscriptions has slowed significantly but not stopped, Nielsen’s latest “Cross-Platform Report” says the number of U.S. homes paying a multi-channel provider for TV services last year actually declined by 1.5 million, or about 1.5 percent. Read more at paidContent »
The power of network owners to bundle channels together — to force pay-TV operators as well as subscribers to buy programming as a package — is at the heart of the current TV ecosystem. If it’s being lost today, it’s not because people are cutting the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Want to watch live TV on your Roku without subscribing to cable? Then you should take a look at Skitter, which is rolling out a low-cost live TV service for connected devices. Simliar efforts have failed in court in the past, but Skitter is completely licensed. Read more »
The good news for the traditional subscription TV industry: subscriber counts across the cable/satellite/telco television services industry… Read more at paidContent »
In just the past few weeks, Barry Diller-backed Aereo launched a subscriptions streaming service in New York City, Cisco bought NDS for $5 billion, word leaked of Intel’s plans to create a nationwide virtual cable TV service and Netflix began chatting up cable operators about addings ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Aereo, a bold new service that brings broadcast TV and DVR to your iPad and iPhone, started its engines in New York City today — and the re… Read more at paidContent »
Mark Phillip wants to save cable television, kind of. He really wants to make life easier for sports fanatics like himself, but in doing so has created something he thinks could save cable and satellite from the cord-cutting craze. The secret to his possible success: data. Read more »
Google, Aereo and Boxee are shifting the focus of OTT video from catch-up TV and on-demand movie titles that make up much of the Hulu and Netflix libraries to live TV content. If their efforts are successful, they will pose a far greater threat to the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Boxee revealed in a filing with the FCC this week that it’s working on additional products that could be used as alternatives to traditional cable set-top boxes. What does the company have up its sleeve? We can only guess — but, hey, that’s fun too! Read more »
From SOPA to Microsoft’s expanded Xbox live platform to cloud-based content storage from Apple and Google, the fourth quarter in consumer electronics and media was all about the continued battle for digital living room dominance. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
While cable operators and networks continue to downplay the effect of cord cutting, in Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy survey, the firm reports that 9 percent of respondents have already canceled their cable subscriptions, with another 11 percent saying they are considering doing so. Read more »
The steep prices of the NFL’s new broadcast rights deals are likely to put pressure on rapidly growing fault lines within the pay-TV industry that could, ironically, accelerate the breakup of the broad bundle of channels at the core of the current business model — something ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Jeff Bewkes capped off a string of strange diatribes in which he has compared Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) to “the Albanian army” and “a hamburger”… Read more at paidContent »
Boxee just confirmed the live TV dongle we first reported about a week ago: Boxee Box users will be able to watch free live HD TV on the device starting in January, when the USB dongle will go on sale for $49. Read more »
Huge news for Boxee Box owners: Boxee will soon release a major update that will include the capability to watch live, free over-the-air HD TV on the device though a USB dongle. We were able to take a first peek at the unreleased feature. Read more »
Happy birthday to us: It’s been a year since we published the very first episode of Cord Cutters. In that time, we’ve not only released 35 additional episodes but also learned a whole lot about the future of TV, and the people who reinvent it. Read more »
For all the talk, there’s little evidence that cord cutting, to whatever extent it is actually happening, has loosened the grip of the networks or cable operators on the TV business. If anything, they’ve tightened their hold, as evidence from this last quarter shows. Read more »
Cord cutting will continue to grow in the next five years, but pay TV providers will also be squeezed by households who never subscribe to begin with. Altogether, nine million households won’t have cable in five years time. DVR growth is also slowing as a result. Read more »
