The Challenge of Vertical Integration for Comcast and Bloomberg

Back in the 1940's, an antitrust case was decided that had long lasting effects on distribution and content. In US vs Paramount Pictures, the courts decided that vertical integration, in this case the owning of both a studio and a movie theater, was illegal. Studios were forced to sell their theaters and an oligopoly was destroyed.

So it is of no surprise that the vertical integration of content and distribution is popping up once again in cable. That was the concern behind the merger of NBC Universal and Comcast and thus rises the latest accusation between Bloomberg and Comcast. "In order to win antitrust approval to purchase a controlling stake in NBC Universal, Comcast promised not to favor its dominant business news network, CNBC, over rivals such as Bloomberg TV. Bloomberg claims that as a condition of the deal, Comcast is obligated to place its business channel closer to other news channels, including Comcast's CNBC and MSNBC."

Smaller studios faced similar troubles. With big studios owning all the movie theaters, smaller studios couldn't get placement of their films. They were in blocked out. And while the media world has changed and digital has opened up distribution alternatives, cable remains the leader at the moment. Limiting or restricting viewership of cable channels is simply history repeating itself; vertical integration causing smaller networks to not get their content in front of audiences. While Bloomberg may have deep pockets to fight this battle, there are other networks paying close attention to this fight so as to demonstrate why they also deserve equal access.

Thus begins another chapter in cable, a fight over antitrust behavior. yes the entertainment landscape may have changed but history is a funny thing; when we don't learn from our mistakes, we repeat them.

EBIF Dying Part Two, Comcast Testing IP

How timely. Shortly after sending out my previous blog do I find this terrific article in today's Wall Street Journal. The old maxim, if you can't beat em, join em, seems to have prevailed as Comcast begins to accept that for now the future is IP over EBIF. "Using the MIT campus as its proving ground, Comcast in coming months will try delivering TV channels using the same standard used to deliver data over the Internet, known as the Internet protocol, or IP. Like other cable providers, Comcast currently delivers channels over less versatile digital television technology that sends the video in streams to set-top boxes and isn't compatible with the Internet." And should it prove a successful test, cable interactivity and convergence could take a large progressive leap forward.

"The new technology could enable Comcast to deliver video service to any customer with an Internet connection, regardless of whether they live in an area covered by Comcast's cable system. A move to do so would shake up the pay-TV market, where cable systems largely operate in separate regions of the country, known as 'footprints.'" It is this very notion of competition across the entire USA by cable operators that causes competing satellite companies to worry. Their competitive edge is to merge Direct TV and Dish and compete with cable universally.

And a web based approached better gives the consumer what they seek most, content what they want, when they want, where they want, and how they want. No set top boxes, better interactive guides, easier set up and servicing. Overall, an IP approach delivers a better experience than EBIF. So push that test and start rolling out.

Cable's EBIF Is Dying On The Vine

What happens when an industry is so resolute in its plans to protect it's turf against the competition that it draws a line in the sand only to see others attack from a different front. They lose. Such is the case in battle and so too in business. To stay so narrowly focused and unbending to changing external factors is a recipe in disaster. And so too the ultimate end of EBIF, Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format, designed exclusively for cable.

"It was invented as a way to add more oomph to the fielded base of digital cable set-top boxes, which obsolesced almost before they were installed. Ten years ago." But the world became Internet Protocol (IP) based and TV and other consumer electronic manufacturers, found more flexibility working with IP than with the cable operators and their EBIF technology. The result are not helping cable with the rise of more over the top competitors offering similar video content. These competitors found the different front and did an end around on the cable operators.

Can EBIF and IP work together? Some Apps are working to make it so for better connectivity and TV on the go. But it may not be the ideal technological approach. Ever wonder what those blue pop up screens are that come up on your TV for on demand movies and other ads. They are achieved with EBIF. And they look like decades old graphics. Clunky and downright ugly. Certainly not as clean and easy to interact with as other means. Communication has changed and EBIF has not. The consumer seeks more convergence and ease of use in their interactions with their video content. EBIF has to change or cable operators will continue to lose.

Dish Desires Direct TV

Speculation has arisen yet again that the two major satellite players may look to merge. What once might have been thought of as unthinkable now seems possible, especially with others before them being approved. Look no further than the merger of Sirius Satellite and XM Radio, despite being the only two satellite radio companies. But they were approved because competition still exists via the web and terrestrial radio. Other mergers like Comcast and NBC Universal also demonstrates that even vertically integrated media companies get approved. So it seems that a merger of Dish and Direct TV could also pass because of wire and wireless competition.

"DirecTV has 19 million subscribers, while Dish has 14 million. Together, they would form the biggest pay-TV provider with enough clout to push back against rising programming costs." Currently Comcast has over 22 million subscribers; a satellite merger would make Dish-Direct TV number 1. For cable, the next step is clear to them, continued consolidation of cable operators. With Cablevision recently owning Bresnan and Charter selling its LA systems, MSOs and systems should be ripe for the taking. Logically, Charter, Cox, and Cablevision should be viewed as ripe for the taking.

Is the Direct TV - Dish merger speculation or reality? Today it may be just talk, but as the industry life cycle for cable continues to mature, consolidation and convergence are necessary next steps. It brings better synergies, better efficiencies, and lower costs to compete in an ever changing media landscape.

If Content is Sold Everywhere and Anywhere, Does It Become A Commodity?

Content deals are everywhere with sales to cable, Hulu, Netflix, Tivo, Apple,and others. Then it is repackaged and offered to the consumers. To compete in the mobile space, cable has now pushed its on demand extension onto iPads and iPhones. And as a consumer, we can decide where we want to watch our Spongebob episode, whether on TV, on our computer, on our tablet, or on our smartphone. With sales across all platforms and all devices, all this video content is becoming ubiquitous. Soon it could be at a tipping point where the content itself is viewed by the consumer as a commodity. With no exclusivity or other distinguishing differences, the consumer will make decisions on how to watch on a pricing basis. The cheapest viewing platform wins.

Could that hurt the cable model as content owners sell to mobile devices? The cable model is certainly not the cheapest and the threat of cord cutting already exists. Do these content deals simply increase the threat of more lost subscribers? For viewers, the concept of content everywhere and anywhere is appealing. For content platforms, like cable, it means figuring out new strategies to maintain a differentiated value to offset the content commodity issue.

Content creators are pursuing more platform deals to raise revenue. Distributors will find competition become more fierce. Over time, the big fish will swallow the smaller fish and the distribution choices will get smaller. It is the pattern of every industry and already at play strictly within the cable industry. It is the industry and product life cycles at play. With ultimately the many leading to the few.

Two Screens Are Better Than One

Count me in the majority, I look at my smartphone when I am watching TV. "About 70% of tablet owners and 68% of smartphone owners said they use their devices while watching television, according to Nielsen’s mobile connected device report for the first quarter of 2011". And I suspect this percentage will only continue to grow. What are we doing with our devices while concurrently watching TV. For me, it is to catch up on email, get scores of out-of-market baseball games, and play Words With Friends and other silly games. Commercial breaks become an obvious time to sneak a peak but I also escape to my second screen in program. The reasons seems to be that most content on TV is what I call "low involvement" programming. It requires little attention to know what is occurring and one can drop in and out of viewing the show and still feel engaged in the plot. On the other hand, "high involvement" programming requires more attentiveness to remain engaged in the on-screen plot. Losing focus causes the viewer to feel lost in what may have transpired on the screen. For these types of programs, less 2 screen viewing would seem to occur.

Would viewers want to engage with the TV program on their smartphone or tablet? I see a fit with those who want that water cooler social approach during the show. Others may simply want related content pertaining to on-screen action on their handheld device. For now, the second screen provides unrelated content to the TV screen, but still of interest to the user. For the moment, we are building a comfort level with a 2 screen viewing approach and I doubt that will ever diminish.

Nook Nabs Niche

Ok, not quite a niche, but the Barnes and Noble Color Nook seems to have caught the eye of the female demographic. Whether a purposeful strategic approach or not, the Nook seems to have drawn in a far larger skewing female audience. "On the surface, the reason for the strong performance of female-oriented publications on the Nook is relatively straightforward. Generically speaking, the iPad and other tablets are men's toys, while the Nook Color and other e-readers are more popular with women. According to data from Forrester Research, 56 percent of tablet owners are male, while 55 percent of e-reader owners are female." Is this because of a technological need or a content one?

Certainly, Barnes & Noble's marketing push has aimed squarely at the female audience to start. "And Barnes & Noble has marketed the $249 Nook Color toward females. Ads show women and girls reading it in various states of relaxation and repose: at the beach, in bed, on the couch." Executives at B&N have also been more collaborative with magazine publishers, with both the negotiation of the pricing model and with the actual production to get the print repurposed to digital. They recognized that content was needed to make the devices more valuable to its audience. More female magazines, more female readers, more female Nook purchasers.

It seems where the Apple iPad has excelled has been in mobile web application. But with printed content, the e-book readers have been excelling. Also too, Apple has been slower to approving subscription models for its iPad then the Nook or Kindle has been for their devices. Consequently, female readers have flocked to e-books to get book and magazine content in a digital form while male web users have flocked to the iPad. If we consider that all of these devices are still in their early acceptance stages, once content availability becomes ubiquitous across all devices, so should the percentages of male and female users also split evenly across all these same devices.

At that point, will consumers feel the need to own both devices or will the preference be to have tablets and e-readers start to look and work more like the other? For now, each is defining it's space and having a successful time doing it. And that may mean we own both a table and a e-book reader.

Liberty Wants Barnes & Nobel

Dish goes after Blockbuster, a brick and mortar store with small piece in streaming media; now Liberty (aka Direct TV) sees value in another brick and mortar store, Barnes and Nobel, with a piece in streaming media. I sense a trend! "Put another way, Like satellite competitor Charlie Ergen, who surprised observers by acquiring Blockbuster from bankruptcy court for Dish Network, they are looking primarily at the part of the business that is growing and believe they can take advantage of the existing bricks-and-mortar business while managing a transition." And perhaps there is some synergy in owning a national chain and selling a content product.

All in all, this is a story about digital media. For both Liberty and Dish, the digital piece has the most growth potential, to help support content distribution, And for Liberty, who also has pieces in Sirius, Starz, and QVC, the book store could be of help in pushing further sales and marketing efforts. A good synergistic opportunity.

Will Liberty's offer be accepted and are their any regulator concerns to overcome? Heck if Comcast can get NBCU, then it seems like nothing should stop it, except for a rejection by B&N shareholders. A Liberty merger though seems like a smart move and a good thing for both parties. Of course a rejection will only take B&N closer to Border's DOA world.

Digital Books Beating Print Book Sales

The future of reading is digital. Not that printed books will vanish, just that folks may be particular about what books they want in printed form and what they want in digital. As consumers, we have become more and more enamored with digital technology and more and more comfortable reading on digital screens. And Amazon's Kindle has been one device that has thrived in this changing landscape. "Since April 1, for every 100 print books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books. This includes sales of hardcover and paperback books by Amazon where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher." Is this 2 month worth of data trend or aberration; the sample size may be small but that shouldn't take away from a clear movement toward digital reading.

E-book readers and tablets are still considered early adopter products. Their costs continue to drop and demand for these products continue to rise. That lends itself to further increases in digital content consumption. In addition, more and more print content companies are distributing content in digital form. "More than 175,000 books have been added to the Kindle Store in just the last 5 months." Impressive numbers and spectacular growth.

In addition to the Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook also seems to have strong attraction. With rumors of a new, lower priced model scheduled to be released shortly, the Nook will attract more users. It's color model has also proved a hit and even a possible iPad competitor. And other e-readers and tablets will further push the demand for digital reading - for books, newspapers, and magazines. In a world where consumers are no longer patient for the paper to be delivered or the magazine to arrive in the mail or to go to the bookstore, digital content offers faster and easier distribution, more flexibility, and hopefully, more value.

DVRs Are Saving TV Shows

As I and others have written, the DVR is actually good for TV viewing, cable subscription and ad revenue. Consumers have been wanting more control of their viewing and prefer to watch what they want, when they want. It is what has made both the DVR and on demand an indispensable part of the TV experience. And consumers utilize that experience, enjoying the sit back nature of the big screen TV. DVRs offer the flexibility of watching when it is convenient to the viewer and not to the schedule. And brings in viewers that might not have sampled the show when it was on live. "On Monday NBC, renewed 'Parenthood' and Fox renewed 'Fringe,' but not on the strength of the shows ratings when they first air. The crucial factor for both these shows was the viewers they drew on DVR over the week after they debuted. When accounting for a week of DVR, ratings for both shows spiked more than 40 percent. This sends a message to the networks that the shows have broad reach and the potential to really take off." And in most cases, viewers are still watching the ads, even on DVR.

Still, as this week's upfronts have shown, the networks have done a good bit of bloodletting, dropping freshman shows left and right. Not that any of these shows were great, but the challenge is to find the ones that have the potential to be great. Both "Cheers" and "Seinfeld" were ratings losers in their first year(s), but some executive believed in them and let them continue. The result, two long running, successful sitcoms. With so much competition from cable and the web, shows need more support and better marketing to help them break through the clutter. The DVR can offer proof that viewers who save them for later viewing have a real interest in them. So congrats to the DVR, you went from being feared by the programmers to being hailed the hero.

Netflix Leads Bandwidth Usage

The concern regarding the rise in bandwidth usage is real and cable operators are concerned that their broadband pipeline is getting more and more crowded, especially having sold an "all you can eat" model and not being able to capitalize on this increased usage. "In North America, Netflix streaming video accounts for 29.7% of peak downstream Internet traffic and has become the largest source of Internet traffic overall, according to a study by bandwidth-management vendor Sandvine." Netflix has even surpassed BitTorrent in streams. And from all indication, Netflix usage will only continue to grow.

Will this research only push broadband providers to move away from the open buffet to a usage based model? For cable, the fear is that the consumer will prefer the dumb pipe and cut its cord to cable's linear and on demand model to simply become the conduit for a consumer's web access. "Earlier this month AT&T adopted monthly bandwidth limits (150 Gigabytes for DSL and 250 GB for U-verse Internet customers) and will charge $10 for each additional 50 Gigabytes used." Of concern for Netflix but of much interest to other providers.

Consumer acceptance of a usage based fee will encourage other cable companies to follow. And it will take the consumer back to the days when their "long distance bills" were too high and phone usage was timed. Not a pretty site. The days of unlimited broadband may soon be numbered as streaming starts to look a lot like a utility service and we pay close attention to how many bytes we use.

The Future Of Print Is Digital

It starts to sound like a broken record, the future of print is digital. But the nature of people is to reject change, not embrace it. The visionaries can see the future and can adapt quicker to it. The result is that some companies look like leaders and others like followers.

In the world of publishing, some companies find it harder to risk the loss of print subscribers so they delay adding a digital subscription. The Wall Street Journal was quick to build a digital subscription model; The New York Times slower. And more are finally beginning to come around. A new pricing model is finally developing. "Increasingly, publishers are charging premium prices for digital content, betting on a new breed of media consumer willing to pay for content on devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad, and throwing in print at little or no additional cost." And I suspect that subscriptions will start to rise at a healthy pace.

Even Forbes recognizes that these "digital pennies" that Jeff Zucker once laughed at brings a significant revenue. "What is the main reason for (Steve) Forbes’s confidence? He revealed that digital revenues from Forbes.com now account for 50pc of Forbes magazine’s total revenues, having successfully sold advertising at a premium rate and attracted 19 to 20 million unique visitors per month. Forbes said that the company may experiment with paywalls and micro-payments in the future as it was important to have a 'hybrid model'”.

Apple's visionary push for a tablet, the success of the iPad, and the subsequent rise of competition in this space, coupled with other mobile devices, is having a revolutionary impact on the media landscape. It is reviving mature brands and enabling new users to easily purchase and consume. Certainly, this digital age has some negative repercussions. Less print means less paper and less physical manufacturing. It also means less paper being mailed and more loss for the Post Office. Change has repercussions; there is hurt and there is gain. But it must happen. For as we know, nothing stands still and change is the only constant.

iPad Consumers Will Subscribe To Print Content

The news confirms that the iPad and other digital devices can reinvigorate the newspaper and magazine industry. Growth is definitely their as well as a huge appetite to consume content. "We are excited to report that we're getting a totally new audience in our tablet editions. At Popular Science the data has proven that 2.1% of the email addresses that we have for our iPad subscribers match active print subscribers while 2.7% match expired print subscribers. So that says to us that something on the order of 95% of the iPad subscribers are new to subscribing to Popular Science." Yes, the tablet helps to reach new subscribers. And more eyeballs will only grow advertising revenue. Good news for print publishers.

As print content owners have gotten more secure with digital rights management and as they finally see a profitable business model, their product cycle is springing back to life! Digital media enables a convergence of data, print with video and audio, into a very robust subscription service. It also leads to a quicker ad conversion rate from awareness to e-purchase. Exciting times lie ahead for print publishers ready to recapture their readers.

Digital Wallet: Your Smartphone Is Your Credit Card

Check out this article on Huffington Post, especially near the end. "Visa is also working with cell phone companies to push forward phones equipped with Near Field Communications (NFC) technology. With NFC, a smartphone does the job of a credit card, so that instead of swiping a card, the shopper would be able to wave or tap a phone when paying for a purchase. While some smartphones, like the Google Nexus S, are set to have NFC technology baked in, Visa plans to offer cases and SD cards that provide compatibility for devices built in earlier times."

Who's ready to lighten or even replace their wallet? I know I am. As the article suggests, it is probably a "generational thing" how quickly someone would be willing to eliminate their wallet completely. For my son, it would be his preference. For my Dad, absolutely not.

NY Times Web Traffic Is Down...So What

Welcome to Economics 101 and price elasticity models and its effect on demand. Add a pay structure to a free web site and traffic to that site drops. Thus is the case with The New York Times website. Clearly, a pricing model to a formerly free website would have been strategized and measured. Without it, how could a subscription price be determined. The risks are measured, the loss of subs to the ad model against the gain from subscription pricing, and a price point that at most, led to a flat impact on the revenue projections. And according to the NYT, the actual results were anticipated. "An analyst also said today that the paywall may be working. 'Our framework suggests that even if The New York Times loses 20% of its web traffic, it will need to add about 107k subscribers to break even,' Citi analyst Leo Kulp said in a note to investors." Economic theory at work!

So what is left? Smart marketing. Building value of the product to the price point charged and satisfying the subscriber so that they remain loyal users. It is harder to find a new sub, easier to retain one. Keeping the website robust and its editorial invaluable are key. The rise of tablets and mobile devices and the demand for content should bring more subscribers to join up. Consumers want to make their iPads, Kindles, and Nooks as invaluable as possible and access to a NYT daily edition online can satisfy that demand.

Transitions from one technology to another can be difficult and in the short term, financially hurtful. But look at Netflix and see how they successfully moved from DVD toward streaming while its competitor, Blockbuster, was much slower to act. The same holds true for The New York Times. The long term gains should outweigh these short term struggles. The need to change to a digital pay model is necessary and can lead to a resurgence in subscriber growth.

Is Skype A Win For Microsoft?

With Microsoft paying a lot of money to acquire Skype, one has to wonder if this is a good investment of capital or a bad one. With its signature Office product, Microsoft may believe that a full integration of Skype into its suite will have enormous value to the business community. "Microsoft is betting that Skype can help change its fortunes. Skype is a leader in Internet voice and video communications, with 170 million users each month connected for more than 100 minutes on average. In the last year or two, video use has surged, now accounting for 40 percent of Skype’s traffic."

Skype helps make international calls cheaper. Skype helps grandparents see their grandchildren long distance. And while video calling has been the dream for telecommunication for years, most younger generation users prefer texting to calling. In the business would, video conferencing can work when you are also presenting powerpoint and other materials. In those instances, software like WebEx works well. But in most interactions between buyer and seller, the anonymity of a voice only call over video chatting remains the preference. We multitask so much when we are on a call and we don't want the other person on the call to know that we are not giving them our full attention. Otherwise, we might be caught reading our emails, drinking our coffee, or chatting with the mute button on to someone else in the room.

Can Microsoft take this expensive investment and find additional revenue? "Google, like Skype, has a free Internet phone call and video messaging service. So Microsoft, analysts say, is taking a bold step to grab a leadership position instead of risking falling behind Google in a crucial market and then facing the difficult task of trying to catch up." Is this space the best place for Microsoft to make this investment? Will users pay more for the Office Suite with Skype? Hopefully Microsoft has already put together a strategy to quickly capitalize on the software and make it, like the Office Suite, invaluable for the user. Or it may become for Microsoft another bust investment.

Tivo To Get VOD on Comcast

If you care what kind of car you drive, you might also care what kind of DVR you use, too. There is a difference between a cable DVR and a Tivo. But is it worth the added cost to upgrade?

Until now, it didn't make sense. Tivo boxes could record programs but could not access on demand features from cable. For Comcast, that upgrade is now happening. "Comcast and TiVo have partnered up to offer access to cable TV, broadband content, and Comcast's Xfinity On Demand library through TiVo Premiere boxes." Comcast still needs to come to the house and install CableCards. But no other equipment should be necessary.

The rollout, for whatever reason, seems slow. Only San Francisco is mentioned. Will Comcast and Tivo heavily market in Comcast systems when available? Will consumers upgrade? It seems the time to get this to market is late. With tons more content available digitally over the top, the consumer has already found alternatives that work. Gaming systems, DVD players, and TV manufacturers are selling electronics that easily access the web. Consumers are also watching outside the home using their same over the top subscriptions, Hulu, Netflix, and others. A Comcast - Tivo on demand box is nice, it just seems like they are 2 years late to market. If you already own a Tivo Premiere box in a Comcast market, the upgrade seems a no brainer; but if you don't own a Tivo, an on demand upgrade doesn't seem like enough to switch your DVR.

If You Can't Beat Em (Netflix), Join Em

There is something to be said for content companies to not also own the platform. They become more adaptable to a changing technological environment and hopefully quicker to recognize, strategize, and act. "As they delivered their quarterly earnings reports last week, companies including Time Warner Inc. and CBS Corp. were doling out praise for Netflix." Neither own a cable distribution platform, so each see that it is most important to follow the customer. And the customer is cord shaving and cord cutting. It also makes sense to be accessible everywhere so that your content is easy to find and view. Lastly, these media companies also hope that it is not a zero sum game so that doing deals with Netflix and others, along with cable operators, means incremental revenue gains.

It will be this philosophy that if you can't beat em, join em, that will entice more content companies to pursue a streaming platform along with its cable distribution. With customers flocking to Netflix and their subscriber base at 23 million and growing, a deal with Netflix doesn't seem like a bad thing.

Will TV Watching Become A 2 Screen Experience

As tablets and smartphones invade our daily lives, we are using them more. Not just to check e-mail or make a phone call, but to read a newspaper or magazine, play a game, or check on a baseball score. These small screens are so pervasive in our lives that they remain in use even as we watch TV.

But why do these two devices, the TV and the tablet, need to be doing different things? What if the smaller screen was an extension of the larger one. There are too many instances where it would make sense. Watch a sitcom on the HDTV and blog on the iPad with others in real time. Watch "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and play along on the smartphone. Watch a cooking show and download the recipe. Watch QVC and shop. Two screens working together to augment the viewing experience.

For cable companies, it brings another level of interactivity and lends itself to a second screen for advertising. While cable pushes forward with interactivity on the big screen, it is not what the customer wants. They do not want the clutter on the big screen. But coordinate it with a small screen and it may prove a winning combination. Clutter aside, the tablet and smartphone aren't going away. A coordinated effort could be the next generation of viewing behavior.

There's Money In That Broadband Wire

First Comcast announces a loss of video subscribers with a gain of phone and internet subscribers; today, Cablevision announces the same news. In fact, the gain of phone and internet subscriptions far outpace the loss of its cable subscribers. As a result revenues for both Comcast and Cablevision are up for the first quarter. It is also important to note that profit margins for the video business is far narrower than from phone and internet.

It certainly suggests that owning the pipeline is a smart move, more so to provide interactive connectivity to the home. Cablevision increased its subscriber base through it's acquisition of Bresnan late last year. Comcast, who is already the largest cable operator, may seek to streamline its areas of business to assure more economies of scale. Rumors are floating that Comcast may deal their New York Metro DMA systems to either Cablevision or Time Warner Cable. Comcast is unlikely to be the dominant provider in NY unless it decides on an acquisition strategy. With the spin off of Rainbow still planned by Cablevision, perhaps it allows the Dolan family to put it's systems up for sale as well. Comcast may want to consider that opportunity although it would require another fight with the FCC. If that is the end game, Comcast may just want to retain it's NJ and CT systems.

Sirius Subscribers Growing

Sirius had some pretty impressive growth for the first quarter of this year, adding almost 375,000 new customers and exceeding 20 million customers in total. And Sirius expects to add another million through the rest of this year. A healthy gain even considering the concern over automobile production due to the horrific problems in Japan.

Also the article notes that average revenue per Sirius subscriber remains flat. Hopefully higher subscriber numbers can justify higher advertising spending. Sirius needs to also market harder to get it's mobile app sold on every iPad, iPod, and iPhone which could help them significantly. It is an untapped audience that could add a significant group and extend listening for current auto subscribers.

All in all, the Sirius team seems to have found its focus, despite competition from so many others, as well from a struggling economy. For customers to pay for radio content, free on conventional radio, is a testament to the business model.

Is Nielsen Losing Its Touch

TV ownership, as measured by Nielsen is dropping. Blame it on the economy, on the digital signal transition, and perhaps on cord cutting; regardless, TV ownership is a couple percentage points lower. We have been talking about non-linear video viewing for years now, from DVR to On Demand and from streaming media to digital downloads, content viewership has changed. We are no longer strictly a linear TV Viewer.

For Nielsen, that seems like a brand new revelation. "That second reason (internet viewing) is prompting Nielsen to think about a redefinition of the term 'television household' to include Internet video viewers." Thinking about a redefinition? And notice that Nielsen is still limiting its measurement to internet and still disregarding other viewing platforms. They barely notice DVRs and still can't manage to understand on demand. And so as they think about a new term, "Internet Video Viewer" is still limiting. Advertisers want measurement of their ads in content regardless of how or where it is consumed. DVR, on demand, and streaming all matter. Perhaps it would be better for Nielsen to redefine its definition to reflect all "Content Video Viewers".

Yes, TV ownership has dropped, yet video screen ownership has risen dramatically. Tablets, smartphones, and computers can view both short and long form video. TV screens still represent 96.7% of households and DVR and On Demand content viewership is also rising. Nielsen needs to capture all this information as other research companies are already adapting to this new screen viewership model.

Buy The Print Issue, Get The Digital Issue Free

As a start, Time inc and Apple have agreed on one thing, print subscribers of popular print magazines can get a digital version for free. "Starting Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune magazines will be able to access the iPad editions via the apps, which will be able to authenticate them as subscribers." Will that move retain or even grow the print subscriber base, I hope so. It certainly brings an added value opportunity to the subscription and may work for a family that historically shared the print issue. And it could help lead to a next deal to sell iPad only subscriptions.

It seems that Apple wants to control the digital subscription sale and the customer information and won't share that data with the print publisher. "The standoff has left most magazines with only one way to sell titles on the iPad: one issue at a time, which publishers say is asking too much of readers, particularly of the weekly magazines that form the core of Time Inc.'s business." It seems a solution should be close at hand. A means to share the data and leverage a revenue model that is beneficial to both parties. Per the article, enabling iPad subscriptions to the print audience is a stepping stone to an all encompassing agreement.

Dish Finally Settles With Tivo

One lawsuit finally done, but others still around. "Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. will pay TiVo Inc. $500 million to settle a patent lawsuit over digital video recorder technology, the companies said Monday." In addition, Tivo remains on Dish boxes and they will work together to market Blockbuster.

So who is next to settle?