Also: Netflix DVD business shrinks; Verizon and Cablevision battle over broadband ads; green's the thing at SCTE event

Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor

January 26, 2012

2 Min Read
Netflix Bracing for Clash With Amazon

Welcome to today's cable news roundup.

  • Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) is gearing up for more direct competition from Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), predicting in a letter to investors that the Jeff Bezos-led giant will launch a standalone streaming subscription video service that will undercut Netflix's current pricing. Netflix anticipates that the new service, offered as a free add-on for its US$79-per-year Prime service, will also be sold to everyone else for less than the $8 per month Netflix charges for its own subscription streaming service. (See Amazon Fires Shot at Netflix's Bow .)

  • Netflix's streaming subscriptions bounced back big time in the fourth quarter, but its DVD business is still struggling. The company lost 2.76 million DVD subs in the period, causing some to wonder if Netflix will bug out of that business sooner than predicted. (See Netflix Subs Rebound in Q4 .)

  • In the latest round of the my-broadband-is-bigger-than-your-broadband battle between Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), the MSO said it would clarify advertisements claiming that it provides Internet speeds "3X faster than FiOS." At the behest of Verizon, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus recommended that Cablevision do a better job disclosing that the claim is a comparison of its 50Mbit/s Docsis 3.0 service with FiOS's entry-level 15Mbit/s tier, notes Multichannel news.

  • Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) has tapped Amy Lynch as area VP for the MSO's California Southwest Bay region. She's the first woman to oversee operations in the MSO's Silicon Valley and San Francisco peninsula, a territory Comcast calls one of its "most strategic." Lynch most recently served as GM of Comcast's Colorado Mountains division and AVP of Comcast's Northern Colorado territory.

  • The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) will get its green on on when it hosts the SEMI (Smart Energy Management Initiative) Forum in Philadelphia on March 15. More than a dozen panels are on tap for the event, which is linked to an initiative the Society launched in 2010. (See SCTE Drives Green 'SEMI'.)

  • Shalom TV started off as a video-on-demand (VoD)-only service, but will launch a live, linear channel available in standard- and high-definition on Feb. 1. Its VoD service currently reaches 43 million homes in the U.S. and Canada.



    — Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable



About the Author(s)

Jeff Baumgartner

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.

Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

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