ContentBridge, a supplier of digital supply chain software to studios, distributors and online stores, and research firm GfK Entertainment are among five new Digital Entertainment Group members, the DEG said Tuesday. Others joining are the online store Google Play, Vubiquity, the supplier of multi-platform video services whose CEO, Darcy Antonellis, is former Warner Brothers chief technology officer, and Western Digital, a hard drive and components manufacturer, the DEG said. Western Digital also is a founding member with Fox Home Entertainment, SanDisk and Warner Home Entertainment of the Secure Content Storage Association, which, according to Samsung, is working to fashion “an open ecosystem” of 4K content that one could buy at retail or download for storage or playback on any number of brands of Ultra HD TVs that will support that ecosystem.
Buckeye Cablevision again told the FCC the retransmission consent regime needs substantial and systematic reform. Buckeye Cablevision’s experience as both a broadcaster and a cable operator in retransmission consent proceedings “gives it a unique perspective on both the problems and solutions to the retransmission consent problem,” it said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1qn02Ml). The filing was on a meeting at Buckeye’s headquarters with Commissioner Ajit Pai, his aide Nicholas Degani, Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, the American Cable Association and other media executives.
Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) signed an agreement with FourthWall Media to use FourthWall’s anonymous TV viewing data to link advertising with retail sales. NCS plans to use FourthWall’s data to expand its TV panel, it said Monday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1oUU1oP). The larger footprint will deliver greater precision across NCS metrics “and enable measurement of smaller TV networks and programming as well as more niche brands,” it said.
More than 10,500 fans have petitioned the FCC to keep the sports blackout rule, said NFL Hall of Famer Lynn Swann in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler filed in docket 12-3. “These letters reflect the strong and growing sentiment that the rule works and helps to keep NFL games widely available on free, over-the-air television.” The FCC shouldn’t “rush to judgment” on eliminating the rule, he said. The letters are part of The Protect Football on Free TV campaign, said a news release from the campaign. “The campaign is supported by the NFL and its CBS and FOX broadcast partners as well as the National Association of Broadcasters and the NFL Players Association."
The 13 largest U.S. pay-TV providers lost about 300,000 net video subscribers in Q2. That’s down from 350,000 subscribers lost during the year-ago period, Leichtman Research Group (LRG) said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1puVo2F). The top providers have nearly 95.5 million subscribers, with the top nine cable companies having 49.9 million video subscribers, satellite TV companies with 34.3 million subscribers and the top phone companies more than 11 million subscribers, it said. Cable One, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are among the top nine cable companies that collectively lost about 510,000 subscribers in Q2, it said. DirecTV and Dish Network lost 78,000 subscribers in Q2, compared with 162,000 in the same period last year, LRG said. AT&T and Verizon added 290,000 subscribers, compared with 373,000 net additions in Q2 2013.
Dish Network updated its Dish Anywhere app with a new interface and enhanced personalization capabilities. The new app “shifts to an image-centric format featuring large programming thumbnails on a flat, dark background, making it easier for users to navigate to their favorite TV shows,” the company said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1sBclta). New features include program recommendations, a “watchlist” allowing customers to consolidate desired TV programs into an easily accessible queue for future viewing, and a media page that aggregates information from the guide, DVR recordings and VOD into one place, it said.
The number of U.S. pay-TV subscriptions “barely budged” in Q2, said MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett in an email to investors Thursday. That’s a “small but discernable improvement from recent trends when the number of pay TV subscribers was actually shrinking,” he said. When combined with slow growth in the number of households, the subscription numbers mean cord cutting has slowed to an annual rate of 400,000 households, Moffett said. That’s “a meaningful deceleration” and “well below” the peak rates of cord cutting in 2012, he said. Subscription numbers also show that the pay-TV industry is growing more than twice as fast as wireless, Moffett said.
Time Warner’s board and management team are committed to enhancing long-term value, the company said in a news release Tuesday after 21st Century Fox ended its plan to try to buy Time Warner (http://bit.ly/1oD1ehw) (CD Aug 6 p15). Time Warner is “well positioned for success with our iconic assets,” the release said.
Disney is “growing our business with Netflix” because “we believe in their platform and its future, and we have from the beginning,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said on a quarterly earnings call. Disney also thinks its brands “can be well monetized on their platform, which is evidenced by what they are paying for our brands and our content,” he said Tuesday. “As long as that continues, which I think it will, not just domestically but internationally, our business is expected to be robust with them or even grow. So it’s a good combination. We've got brands and content that they want and they have a platform that we like and that we want and they are willing to pay the right price for our content, good prices for our content. I think it’s mutually beneficial.” Netflix representatives didn’t immediately comment.
A new S35 specialist group was formed at the ATSC to model and evaluate the “ecosystem” in which ATSC 3.0 systems will be deployed, ATSC said Wednesday. S35 will probe “the various layers of content and data that will flow into and through ATSC 3.0 encoders and will be delivered to consumers through broadcast and other media,” said Merrill Weiss, the longtime DTV consultant and engineer who will chair the group. It plans a series of “Top-Down 3.0” meetings to create “block diagrams for the respective layers and examining their interactions with one another,” Weiss said. Sony Electronics in San Diego will host the first meetings Sept. 29-Oct. 1, he said. S35’s “output” will be of “keen interest” to the other ATSC specialist groups that are developing ATSC 3.0’s “actual technology,” he said. “Those groups need to understand the environment in which ATSC 3.0 will be applied.” S35 “will consider the flow of content from acquisition through post production, distribution, emission, and redistribution,” ATSC said. It will examine all types of content and functionality “impacting on a fully operational ATSC 3.0 broadcast system,” it said.