Would It Matter If Your Cable Box Came From Apple?

Since the Steve Jobs bio came out, there has been speculation that Apple was going to enter into the TV marketplace; a new manufactured television or more refinement to Apple TV.  Well the news today is that Apple has  been talking to the big cable operators about an Apple branded set top box.  "Apple is wooing cable operators for an Apple-branded set-top box for live TV and other programming, according to a report."

Today cable subscribers rent their cable boxes; the challenge would be selling consumers a set-top box.  Others, like TiVo, have tried to enter this space with a branded, beautifully built, consumer friendly box, but cable operators have made it harder to easily integrate them.  The CableCard is a lousy solution.  Still TiVo has made slow and steady inroads with some operators. Google has entered the set-top box race with its purchase of Motorola but has yet to do anything to integrate Google in those boxes.  So one wonders whether it would make any sense for Apple to jump start their push into cable by purchasing Scientific Atlanta, now owned by Cisco, or even TiVo.

With cable operators contending with cable subscriber drops, an ally like Apple could help make broadband and cable a better integrative experience, encouraging consumers to want to continue to have both a broadband and cable subscription.  Apple's ability to integrate with its iPad and iPhone could make having an Apple set top box a must have device.

Is More Cable Network Consolidation In Our Future

We've watched as cable operators have merged and the landscape is dominated by a few distributors.  The list of departed cable operators is long including American Cable, Continental, Knology, Insight, and many others.  Today the top 5 operators dominate the country, With Comcast and Time Warner Cable accounting for most of the country. 

Consolidation is happening on the other side of the aisle too, in the content landscape.  Independent cable networks are few and far between as networks have been bought up into bigger media groups.  The latest rumor is that Scripps Networks Interactive, home for HGTV and Food Network, could be on the trading block with Disney the likely buyer.  "Already, Disney is in the process of proving that in contrast to media peers like News Corp, Viacom and Time Warner, it benefits from being a media conglomerate with a pool of assets that includes broadcast and cable networks, movie studios, theme parks and resorts."

It is the economic order as big fish continually buy up the little fish.  Certainly deeper pockets can help a smaller network to grow more rapidly.  It comes with hardship too as  network identities often have to broaden more and more to capture larger audience share.  Disney has done well so far, according to the report.  "In a media industry filled with bad mergers, broken synergy promises and assets that perform better independently, Disney is judged as having succeeded in its acquisitions of Marvel and Pixar, giving investors reason to believe that they have uncovered a rare winning conglomerate formula"  And companies that can successfully find synergies across their businesses are able to better exceed their goals. 

Competition in Tablet Space Intensifying

The wonderful thing about the economy, especially when there are more than a few competitors pursuing their share of the market, is watching how it follows general marketing principles.  Specifically in the tablet market, you have your market leaders pushing their differentiation strategy while others use a low pricing strategy to gain market share.

"New stats from market research firm IHS iSuppli show Apple’s iPad surging ahead of other media tablets to gain a 70 percent market share in the second quarter of 2012."  But not resting on their laurels, expectations are that a mini iPad will be announced  shortly to add to their product line.  New entrants like the Microsoft Surface may cause a buzz while Samsung is banking on growing its share of the Galaxy and Google with the Nexus7.  And of course there is the Kindle from Amazon and the Nook from Barnes & Noble.  In the case of the Nook, they hope to grow business with a timely cut in their price just as school is about to begin.

The joys of a crowded marketplace, inciting constant innovation and pushing the others to keep their eye on the prize.  It should make for a fun Holiday Season as each of these companies sell their benefits to the consumer.

What's A CD, Teens Prefer Online

My son and I were walking through our local mall and he spotted a new store across from his favorite, GameStop.  It was simply called The CD Store and my son wondered why.  With access to songs through iTunes and YouTube, a physical CD isn't something he even thinks about. And according to the Nielsen research, he is not alone.

And for 17 and under, You Tube heads the list of preferences.  "In addition to treating YouTube as a de facto free music service, young people said they are less inclined than those 18 years old and up to listen to CDs or the radio."  The chart in the Wall Street Journal does offer some other interesting observations.



For all age groups, CDs ranked higher for usage than other media platforms, both new and old; higher than Sirius, higher than Facebook, higher than TV (Take than MTV), and even higher than Pandora.  Still it is important to note that this is a moment in time and not a trend analysis to indicate the direction of usage that teens are taking.  As we all know, they are a fickle bunch and can change quickly for many reasons.

That the article suggests that CDs are done, they are less used than even radio for teens. For adults, CDs are still a tried and true formula and perhaps that is why a CD store has popped into our mall.  Adults rank CDs second behind radio in the survey.  Ahh the older generation loves their old fashioned technology.

Does Liberty Want To Sell Starz And Is Comcast A Buyer

Liberty and John Malone love to unlock the value of a company by spinning it off into its own separately traded public company. It has been a strategy that seems to serve them well.  With the decision to spin Starz into a separate company comes speculation that Malone might actually be willing to part with the pay television network.  According to the article in Ad Age, the list of possible acquirers is growing including News Corp, Viacom, Time Warner, Netflix, and Comcast.  But is Liberty really looking to sell this asset and does it make sense for any of these "media giants" to acquire it? At the right price, almost everything can be bought.

 

Dish Network Keeping AMC Off The Air

Whether it is a license fee rate issue or bad blood regarding a lawsuit around Voom, Dish Network has decided to not carry AMC and its other networks, including WE, IFC, and Sundance, on their line-up. Clearly there are different sides to this story. If a decision not to carry certain networks with the result of lowering the monthly fee to consumers works, then other carriers may seek out this strategy to account for consumer price sensitivity.  If enough consumers complain or worse, switch to another provider, Dish may feel the bite and re-engage in a negotiation with AMC.  And other operators will figure out new ways to be the aggregator of all programming.  The fight is on.

AMC is certainly trying different ways to talk to the Dish consumer and get them to act.  One such tactic caught my eye.  I've embedded a video that is both humorous and subtle.

If you want zombies off the street and back on the AMC TV show, The Walking Dead, then this will certainly help.  Enjoy!

What's It All About.com, Alfie/New York Times

The challenges of a media company is deciding what you are and what you want to be.  And sometimes trying to get out of your own way can cause dysfunction among the different businesses.  For the New York Times, it was their hope to augment their print media empire with the purchase of About.com, a digital content company.  In the early years, About brought profit to NYT, but recently, it has likely been ignored as NYT focused on its own subscription and advertising issues.

Perhaps some of the blame for About has been "because of a change in the way Google handles search results. That change made About.com content harder to find."  For me personally, I found the information from About  either dated or so basic to not answer my questions.  I most recently tried to find info on gas grills and sought out About for rankings, ratings, and general info on types of grills.  I luckily found what I needed through other websites.

I remember when About first appeared.  It was the leader in the how to website category, offering tons of information from its experts.  But whether it was the change in Google search or the lack of new and updated information across categories, About.com became less relevant.  With its planned sale to Answers.com, the New York Times can focus back to its core business and plans to turn themselves from the print leader to the online news leader. And with new management to lead it, About can return to a leadership position.

Liberty Media Keeping Busy

Back in the day when John Malone was heading up TCI and I was selling a small cable network to cable operators, I was taken with the style and substance of the man.  I heard him at cable conferences, read about him, and watched as he successfully sold TCI and started Liberty Media.  Since then, he has continued to do what few others are able to do; unlock the value of his company by purchasing into companies and spinning them out into separate businesses.  He continues to do it today as his plan is to spin off his ownership of Starz into a separately traded company.

"Liberty Media, based in Englewood, Colorado, has used tracking stocks and financial transactions over the years to pursue tax benefits and make its diversified assets more attractive to shareholders. They included the separation of Liberty Interactive (LINTA), owner of the shopping network QVC."  He has also done it with Discovery Networks and his next plan involves Sirius Satellite.  As Liberty moves to become the majority owner, he is ready to take those shares and spin them out as well.

For now, it seems to be the ongoing strategy of Liberty Media to be the holding company through investments in other brands.  He takes them, grows them, grows his ownership in them, and then like children, kicks them out of the nest into separate companies, all with Malone ownership behind them.  Good news for investors that like to watch their stock holdings expand through spin offs.

Facebook Faces Concerns On Size Of Its Customer Base

When is a customer not a customer?  How many times can you count a customer?  Simple questions, but as we are finally learning from Facebook, not all is what it appears to be.  "In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the social media company said that as many as 83 million of its accounts are fake." Out of the latest number of 955 million subscribers, that  is a whopping 8.7%.  In addition, 5% of the accounts are duplicates and another "1.5 percent of its accounts are likely spam or accounts set up for other malicious activity."  So all in, almost 15% are not true uniques.  And that is what is uncovered today.  How many set up pages for their pets or use different email addresses for different accounts. And of the true accounts, how many are active and how many are DOA.

Obviously the total remaining number is still large and valuable to marketers.  But the bottom line is for businesses to measure its ROI, it needs to have real numbers that can be analyzed properly.  For now, the stock market is concerned as subscriber growth has slowed and the false accounts are being separated from the real ones.