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?

NBCU Chief, Steve Burke, Sees Synergy As A Symphony

A terrific article in today's Wall Street Journal highlights Steve Burke's plans to add more synergy to the company. And while synergy strikes some with a negative connotation, he uses words like "symphony" to describe his cross-marketing efforts. "While other media companies are breaking apart to streamline, Mr. Burke is fixated on strengthening ties between assets as diverse as theme parks and cable channels like CNBC to pump up interest in NBCU's franchises."

One of the hardest things for a corporate culture to do is work together. Individual businesses work very hard to protect their fiefdoms, sometimes at the expense of the other business lines. Sharing and collaborating when viewed by companies as a zero sum game means that one unit loses for another to win. Thus building synergy among different business units is often a struggle. It takes strong leadership at the top with teams tasked with developing cross-marketing tactics across units. For when different units collaborate and play well together, the result, as Burke notes, is like a symphony, and the result can be a whole that is actually greater than the sum of it's parts.

Simple to say but extremely difficult to implement. That Burke is pushing the process early on is admirable and seems to have yielded early positive results. They include The Golf Channel - NBC Sports tie in, the promotion of Universal Pictures "Hop" with NBC, and the marketing of NBC's new singing competition, "The Voice".

This synergy strategy is against the grain of what other media companies have done to date. In fact, a number have gone as far as divesting themselves. "Several conglomerates have even re-shaped their empires, abandoning sprawling corporate models. In 2006, Viacom Inc. split into two separate firms, CBS Corp. that covered broadcast TV, radio and book-publishing and Viacom that kept most cable TV and cinema assets. Time Warner Inc. followed suit, spinning off AOL Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. in 2009." In addition, Cablevision is spinning Rainbow Media Holdings (to be renamed AMC Networks) off into a separate company as well later this year. As these other companies have had difficult times building synergy across their business units, divesting may have been their only recourse. For NBCU and their parent Comcast, it will be a huge challenge to maintain a synergy approach, but if accomplished will present them with a wonderful "Symphony".

Time Warner Cable Prefers The Web

CEO Glenn Britt sees Time Warner Cable's future and it isn't the set top box. Growth in broadband and over the top competition appears to have TWC finally embracing the internet. "Combined with the idea that they could some day raise prices on those who use the most data, the company painted a picture of a business that would survive the transition from traditional cable video to the Internet. 'High-speed data is quickly becoming the anchor product in the eyes of our customers,' Chief Executive Glenn Britt told analysts Thursday." This awareness certainly is based on the trends of the business although it should have been acknowledged much earlier. While their broadband subscriptions rise, even greater than forecast, video subscriptions continue to drop each quarter.

That broadband data, whether e mail or video content, is what is driving the cable business. It is also what is pushing TWC and other cable operators to push their channel line-up out on the web to PCs and tablets. But to embrace IP is to move away from EBIF and set top boxes. "The company's engineers are focused on delivering more video over the Internet to an array of devices include Apple Inc.'s iPad, developing technology that could eventually make cable set-top boxes unnecessary, Britt said." And necessary for a TV Everywhere experience.

This announcement might also be a blow to set top makers like Motorolla and Cisco (Scientific Atlantic), as well as companies building EBIF tools for the set top - Canoe Ventures, Ensequence, and others. TWC is a partner of Canoe and Britt's remarks about the obsolescence of the set top seriously undermines these companies' business models. It is the web and cloud computing that is the future of TV - network DVRs, interactivity, mobile content, and not a set top box in sight.

For Time Warner Cable, the numbers aren't lying. The challenge is how fast TWC and other cable operators can turn their ships to take more advantage of the web before other over the top competitors take too many subscribers away.

Comcast Adds More Broadcast On Demand Shows

With competition for eyeballs growing, Comcast knows that its on demand serve must be the biggest and the best. Combined with its Fancast streaming platform, Comcast can push its subscription value to its consumers. But to stay competitive and valued, the supply must continue to grow. Thus the latest deal to add more shows to its library of on demand.

"The largest U.S. cable-television company will include TV series from Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox for the first time, including “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Glee,” the Philadelphia-based company said in a statement. Comcast will offer the four most recent episodes of each series on demand beginning tomorrow. Comcast is competing against other cable and satellite providers and online sites including Google Inc. (GOOG)’s YouTube and Netflix Inc. for viewers and advertisers. With the show additions, Comcast said it becomes the first pay-TV provider to offer original series from NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox on demand." Ahhhh, here those key differentiation words, first and original. Clearly, Comcast is feeling the pressure from these over the top providers as well as from telcos like Fios who will announce their own extended deals as well.

The on demand space isn't perfect. Some agreements will limit trick features like fast forward, a win for advertisers. For viewers that don't mind, it means more flexibility to watch on your terms and not on a schedule. And for those that know how to use their DVR, a non-issue. The day will come where every show is on demand and that could make DVRs unnecessary. Until then, Comcast and others will continue to push to increase their on demand library.