It's been a tough week for the pay-TV business.
This conversation, recorded before AT&T's most recent earnings announcement, goes deep into the world of why pay-TV business models are changing, what some operators are doing to bundle other services and hang onto customers, and what role subscriber data has in this fight to protect what was once seen as a demand-generator for broadband Internet access.
One thing to watch, according to Light Reading's Jeff Baumgartner, is that pay-TV providers are being very careful about what apps and services they allow on their platforms. Sure, they want to keep customers happy by giving them more choice, but they're also being strategic -- they have to be careful not to overwhelm customers with options and give up too much ground to over-the-top (OTT) services.
Also, we talk about Viacom's investment in ad-supported streaming -- and what lessons it may have learned from Verizon's failed Go90 experiment, Comcast's ability to bundle services well, and whether TiVo's recent study about consumer choice exhaustion really helps pay-TV providers make the case for intelligent content curation.
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- Consumer Interest in à la Carte Declining – TiVo Study
- Verizon Media Cuts Jobs, Has No Growth Plans to Share
- Wow, Free OTT Video Sure Costs a Lot
— Phil Harvey, US Bureau Chief, Light Reading