If you’re frustrated that HBO doesn’t make Game of Thrones and other hit shows available to watch on the web shortly after they air, then you might have Time Warner Cable to thank. Unnamed sources tell Bloomberg that Time Warner Cable “and other pay-TV operators are offering incentives to media companies that agree to withhold content from Web-based entertainment services” that “can take the form of higher payments or… threats to drop programming.” Bloomberg says that such incentives are part of Time Warner Cable’s efforts “to keep customers by ensuring access to exclusive content while fending off competition from upstart Web providers.”
Tim Cook revealed on Tuesday at the AllThingsD: D11 conference that Apple has now sold more than 13 million second-generation Apple TV devices. Even more impressive, the CEO noted that roughly half of those devices were sold in the past year alone. Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune crunched the numbers and found that Apple controls more than half of the digital media receiver market. Not including dedicated gaming systems such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Apple TV has a 71% share of the market. The popular Roku box has sold more than 5 million units, giving it a 27% share of the market, and the Boxee Box sold about 200,000 units, for a 1% share, before it was discontinued last summer.
If you don’t want to be creeped out by the Xbox One Kinect sensor’s ability to track your every move in your living room, then don’t read about some of the ideas that Microsoft has been batting around for how to give viewers incentives to sit through commercials. Per Polygon, Microsoft filed a patent application back in 2011 that detailed how Kinect could watch viewers to make sure they’re sitting through commercials and then reward them with special “achievements” for watching a certain number of ads. Polygon says that getting a certain number of achievements might unlock awards that could include digital gifts, avatar enhancements or reward points. More →
OLED television sets are supposed to be the wave of the future, but early OLED adopters LG and Samsung have found that the future can be very expensive. Bloomberg reports that LG and Samsung’s big bets on OLEDs haven’t panned out so far and the two companies “are now pivoting, with plans to boost output of LCD sets to maintain their dominance of the industry.” The issue for both companies has been how to produce OLED TVs at a low enough cost where they become attractive to consumers. Given that LG’s first OLED television released earlier this year costs around $10,000, it’s safe to say that consumers are looking for much lower price points before they buy in. In the meantime, Bloomberg says that rival manufacturer Sony has the perfect opportunity to swoop in and grab market share while Samsung and LG retool their plans.
Microsoft is trying to differentiate the Xbox One from rival consoles by giving it several key set-top box features for television sets but that doesn’t mean it’s going to take away your need to subscribe to cable services anytime soon. As AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka notes, Microsoft is limiting the amount of live television content Xbox One users can access without a cable subscription, thus ensuring that cable providers don’t feel threatened.
“In order to get the TV part of Xbox One to work, you’ll essentially end up plugging it into your existing cable box, via another box that lets you perform an ‘HDMI pass-through,’” writes Kafka. “In essence, Xbox One is acting as a sort of custom remote for your cable box, which will let you change the channel; it is also creating its own programming guide so you can see what’s on TV.”
As Kafka also notes, Microsoft has worked with ESPN and HBO to create Xbox apps that only deliver content if you’re already subscribed to a cable service. So while we one day just might be able to get all the programming we want over our broadband connections, it’s highly unlikely that Microsoft will be the company to give it to us.
The early reviews of Google Fiber are in from Kansas City and one of the most attractive features of the service seems to be how it makes Netflix irresistible. The buffering annoyances that consumers take for granted vanish as Google Fiber feeds movies and shows instantly to eager Silicon Prairie dwellers. What’s more, the recently launched Google Fiber TV app offers video on demand for iPad. This direction is fascinating because of the hottest trend in US consumer behavior: broadcast television audience collapse. More →
Recent reports suggested Ultra HD TV might not flop after all, and their prospects will only be helped by an early round of price cuts. Preliminary analyses from industry watchers didn’t paint a promising picture for Ultra HD, but more recent reports say new higher-resolution 4K panels might account for as much as 20% of all flat TV displays shipped this year. Now, a new report from Digitimes points out that Ultra HD TVs already saw deep price cuts in China for the holidays. Some models apparently saw price drops so huge that they matched the pricing of comparable 1080p TVs. Digitimes’ sources say suppliers are expected to ship between 3.5 million and 4 million 4K TV displays in 2013.
ABC isn’t taking kindly to Hulu subscribers who are watching its shows online instead of paying for monthly cable services. The New York Times reports that ABC, which is owned by Walt Disney, has decided to yank newer episodes of its shows off both the free version of Hulu and its own homepage and will instead put them on its mobile app that is only accessible to cable subscribers. The network says that it’s created its own in-house streaming app to better adapt to customer preferences by giving users access to its content on all their portable devices. ABC plans to roll out the app in six different cities over the summer.
Are you fed up with paying an $80 cable bill every month for dozens of channels that you never even watch? Not to worry, says National Cable and Telecommunications Association chief Michael Powell: You’re actually being given “unparalleled choice” in your programming. Variety reports that Powell, speaking on Tuesday at a Senate subcommittee meeting to discuss the benefits of “a la carte” cable programming, said that it’s a “very serious question mark whether consumers would have lower bills or cheaper service as a result of a la carte” because consumers may end up having to pay the same amount for fewer channels. Powell also said that it would be a mistake to make significant revisions to the 1992 Cable Act because it “could even be counterproductive by introducing uncertainty and displacing or skewing the marketplace rivalries” that offer “unparalleled choice” to cable subscribers. More →
How much do consumers dislike cable providers’ bundling practices? So much that even Time Warner Cable’s CEO has started to publicly fret about a backlash. Republican Senator John McCain is determined to do something about overly expensive cable bundles, however, and AllThingsD reports that he’s pushing legislation that would “force pay TV operators to break up the programming bundles, by offering channels in smaller groups or on an individual basis.” While this sounds good at first, AllThingsD points out that it may not do much to lower consumers’ monthly bills since popular cable stations such as ESPN are subsidized by less popular stations. Thus, if cable providers are forced to offer channels individually then ESPN could charge around $20 a month for a standalone subscription.
As amazing as it sounds, it seems that Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt really does understand that customers are sick and tired of forking over large amounts of cash every month for cable television and Internet bundles. In an interview with The Washington Post, Britt said that the cable industry’s “structure needs more flexibility” and that he wants to offer customers “smaller, more affordable packages” that don’t cost them upward of $100 a month. To accomplish this, Britt says he’s considering following in the footsteps of controversial website Aereo, which streams over-the-air television over the Internet and lets users record their favorite shows for $10 a month. More →
Google chairman Eric Schmidt has declared that Internet video has crushed traditional television. In a meeting with advertisers on Wednesday, the former chief executive said that “the future is now” for YouTube. Google’s popular video sharing website recently passed a billion unique monthly visitors, however Schmidt’s eyes are focused on the future. He noted that once YouTube expands to more third world countries, the number of visitors will be much larger. More →
