TV Everywhere | Scoop.it

Live, From New York, It’s… Facebook? - TV[R]EV

Peter Rosenberg — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 19:51:24 GMT

"We think that Facebook will work within the system to allow viewers to use their Facebook credentials to authenticate their pay-TV subscriptions and then watch existing network shows, via their MVPD."

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
Another distribution outlet + social login for TVE

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The Promise of Facebook Authentication

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 19:10:25 GMT

Facebook authentication for pay TV is poised to take off and if you’re a
network or a viewer you should actually be very happy about that. If you’re
an MVPD, a lot less so.

What is Facebook authentication? It’s the answer to the long-standing
question “what information would you be willing to trade for access to
content?”

Not trade-trade, as in “give us your email address and a list of the last
10 things you’ve bought online and we’ll give you 3 episodes of Scandal in
return.” But when you opt to use your Facebook ID as a way of
authenticating that you actually are a pay TV subscriber, you’re likely
giving Facebook access to your email, your friend list and all the Likes
you’ve handed out over the years.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
"The biggest advantage to Facebook log-in is that gives networks a way to drive tune-in, something they’ve been struggling with as of late, as viewers have moved to anytime, anywhere viewing, skipping through commercials on their DVRs and otherwise finding ways to avoid all those promo spots."

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Four reasons why TV Everywhere isn't ready for prime time: A simple look at a complex problem

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:17:00 GMT

More than five years after its introduction, U.S. pay TV's complex multiscreen initiative, TV Everywhere, remains a work in progress. Despite record streaming audiences for the World Cup on ESPN and Univision, the industry is struggling in areas like authentication, audience measurement, and consumer awareness.

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New Challenges Chip Away at Cable’s Pillar of Profit

Peter Rosenberg — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 18:15:21 GMT

A future where consumers will be able to assemble an à la carte menu of entertainment suddenly seems much closer.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
"I’m looking forward to the day when I can buy only what I want to watch, or eat, without economic penalty. In other words, no, I do not want fries with that"

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aioTV Joins OATC Effort to Enable Internet Access to Subscription TV

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 15:20:45 GMT

Denver, Colorado (PRWEB) January 21, 2014 -- The media industry organization OATC (Open Authentication Technology Committee) and aioTV will focus on enabling TV content for delivery in all locations.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
“OATC’s effort to bridge the technology gap in this fragmented world of IP aligns our approach for single sign-on and more importantly normalized meta-data across content owners to truly leverage IP delivered opportunities,”

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NBC Olympics Unveils Streaming Plans for Sochi

Peter Rosenberg — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 21:17:51 GMT

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
"...NBC Olympics has continued its efforts to streamline the authentication process with new abilities like In-home auto-verification for some cable/telco customers, cross-domain verification with Adobe Pass, and a longer verification window for users."

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MediaPost Publications TV Everywhere Clicks, Authenticated Video Views Soar 217% 12/04/2013

Peter Rosenberg — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 01:49:40 GMT

TV Everywhere Clicks, Authenticated Video Views Soar 217% - 12/04/2013

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
"...programmers are finally figuring out how to bring TV experiences to viewers across all devices and monetize at the same time."

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PC or TV? No Need to Keep Asking.

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 17:16:42 GMT

Americans increasingly rely on their PC over their TV for entertainment. Which means, if they had to pick one, they'd pick ...

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
Eventually the distinction evaporates. The TV is a display monitor. It is the source & mode of content delivery that is the real discussion.

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Comcast’s thePlatform Nails Up ‘Virtual TV Framework’

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 17:00:09 GMT

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
"The company said it is implementing the update, which envisions a blending of TV and the Web, because decreasing delivery costs coupled with the inexorable shift to IP and cloud-based video delivery systems are expected to alter the distribution model dramatically over the next five years.
Today, TV Everywhere is disjointed in that only part of a customer’s set-top-based video service experience is typically available on other screens in or out of the home. Some MSO-developed TV Everywhere apps offer a subset of the live TV lineup or just a portion of the pay TV provider’s VOD service, while others offer only access to an authenticated, multiscreen VOD library. Several programmers, meanwhile, have developed their own TV Everywhere apps that tend to vary in terms of capability and function..."

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Hulu Plans to Hook Subscription Service Into Google Chromecast

Peter Rosenberg — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 16:26:38 GMT

"...Hulu won’t be able to easily stop users of Google’s new Chromecast from using the “cast” feature to stream Hulu.com video from a Chrome browser tab to a TV. But that’s not a big deal — it’s effectively equivalent to connecting your computer to the TV via HDMI, which the website has never been able to prevent. Rather, expect Hulu to emphasize that it is enhancing its iOS and Android apps to take advantage of the native capabilities of the Chromecast device, for smoother playback and better remote-control capabilities and browsing."

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
File under: "If you can't beat 'em, join them."

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Why Cord Cutting May Be A False Flag for The Future of TV

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:16:43 GMT

...Defining television as video content you watch in one specific environment or using one particular method (while online video content is some unknowable “other”) creates a line of demarcation that gets hazy when you consider a show like Arrested Development, which jumped between the two relatively intact. As author Warren Ellis recently wrote, “I think it’s worth admitting, now, that ‘television’ has become one of those legacy words, like ‘phone,’ that we use to point at a thing, without really fully describing it. It certainly doesn’t mean what it used to.”

“We don’t actually believe there is such a thing as digital video. It’s all just TV,” said Jon Heller, co-founder and co-CEO of FreeWheel, which works with companies to monetize content within the new media space. “No one buys kitchen television, in terms of advertising, the same way that they don’t buy living room television or bedroom television. It is all just TV.” The difference, he says, is that the audience now has more choices about when and where they watch, and the television industry needs to figure out how to deal with that diffusion.

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Google’s Chromecast Lets You Watch TV on the Web on Your TV. Guess Who Doesn’t Like That?

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 19:26:23 GMT

"...Of course, anyone with any common sense, who doesn’t work in legal or biz dev at a large entertainment company, knows that it’s silly to argue that something that’s on one screen shouldn’t be on another. And anyone who wants to buy a cable and connect their laptop to their TV could already do this.

Which is exactly what Ossama Alami, a manager in Google’s developer relations group, told my colleague Liz Gannes when she asked him about the issue today.

There is one solution for content owners who don’t want people using Chromecast to fling stuff to their sets, Alami noted: Stop distributing their stuff on the Chrome browser. Not that he’s suggesting they should do that.

It’s worth noting that this move comes as Google is floating the notion of an “over the top” pay-TV solution, and talking to content owners and networks about licensing their stuff. And it comes after Google has already irked some content owners with earlier versions of Google TV, supposedly because Google didn’t work hard enough to keep pirated content off of those devices.

You’d think that if Google were serious about its latest TV push, it would take extra care not to ruffle the TV guys’ feathers. So maybe it doesn’t think this is a ruffle-worthy issue. Or maybe it just doesn’t care."

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Introducing the Social-TV Ecosystem Chart 2.0

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 16:29:55 GMT

"Last month Ad Age asked for reader input as we worked with our editorial partner Trendrr, the social-media monitoring firm, on updating our Social-TV Ecosystem chart -- a graphic representation of key companies in the sprawling social-TV space. Today, we're presenting the results of that collaboration."

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
Consumer metadata - much of it extracted from their social graph - is becoming a crucial element in content discovery. #BeyondTheEPG

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The travel channels

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 16:03:41 GMT

"This week the Wall Street Journal said Google (which owns YouTube) was seeking deals with television companies to set up its own internet-streaming service. Intel is expected to launch a similar service later this year. Netflix, Amazon and other online distributors will plough a combined $750m this year into making their own exclusive shows, to differentiate themselves from each other and from cable channels.The fight to preserve the old television system while exploiting the new is producing plot twists as complex as a daytime soap’s. The three broadcasters that own Hulu—Disney, 21st Century Fox and NBCUniversal—want to see the site, which had revenues of nearly $700m in 2012, become profitable. But too much success might upset traditional pay-TV firms, which are big customers for the three broadcasters."

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Executives concede TV isn’t everywhere

Peter Rosenberg — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:46:36 GMT

"TV was supposed to be everywhere by now – watchable anytime, anywhere, on your smartphone or tablet. But four years into the industry’s effort, network executives readily admit: TV isn’t everywhere.

The promise of “TV Everywhere” has been a key strategy in the cable and satellite TV industry’s fight to retain customers in the face of challenges from online video providers such as Netflix.

With TV Everywhere, customers who pay for packages with hundreds of television channels are supposed to be able to watch them on mobile devices and computers as well for no extra charge. That perk is meant to make pay TV packages seem more worthwhile and keep customers from defecting.

Yet many rights deals still haven’t been worked out. More important, audience measurement firms have been slow to count viewing on mobile devices, so advertisers have been reluctant to pay as much for commercials on phones and tablets compared with television sets.

“We either don’t get any credit at all, or if we do get credit it’s at a fraction of what we would have gotten if they first watched it live on the TV,” Ron Lamprecht, NBCUniversal’s executive vice president for digital distribution, said during a panel at The Cable Show, an industry conference this week.

This gap in ad revenue has created a kind of chicken-and-egg scenario. Networks and pay TV providers aren’t able to offer as many shows online because they don’t want to spend too much for rights without knowing they can make their money back. So, viewers can’t reliably find their favorite shows online and don’t use the services much."

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
Having attended the panel discussion referenced in the article, here are my key takeaways (combined with some editorial insight ;-)

Universally accepted viewer measuremt across all platforms is essential to driving a level monetization comparable to the traditional/current "big screen" model. The content availability (and consumers) will follow. As Ron Lamprecht (NBC Universal) noted “We either don’t get any credit at all, or if we do get credit it’s at a fraction of what we would have gotten if they first watched it live on the TV”.

Usability for consumers is still problamatic, especially regarding the authentication process. While in-home "auto-authentication" by MVPDs able to leverage the identity of the cable modem helps, there are still significant obstacles for users who do not know or remember their credentials. Marcien Jenckes (Comcast) mentioned that Comcast was evaluating the possiblity of leveraging Facebook for TVE logins - an approach I have advocated for some time. (Synacor now offers Social Login for TVE to its customers.) A device registration process will be critical to enabling secure authentication - especially outside the home. Some of these issues are currently being discussed and/or addressed in the OATC (http://oatc.us/) Usability Working Group.

Public understanding & perception of TVE is also an issue. As Jeremy Legg (Turner) noted, it is a "project not a product".

Discoverabilityand availability of content was also raised as problamatic. The average consumer does not understand why they can watch content on some devices & places but not others, nor is there an intuitive way for them to discover where and on which platform the content they want to watch is available. That there are complex rights & contractual issues at play is not something that is easily understood or communicated to the viewer.

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TV Everywhere Is Top Of Everyone's Mind | TVNewsCheck.com

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:25:54 GMT

So far, TV Everywhere has been mostly a video-on-demand service, a way for subscribers to cherry pick their favorite shows to watch on second screens.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
A robust cross platform measurement system with industry wide acceptance will be the key to driving content availability.

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With Subscriptions, YouTube Fires Shot Across Cable TV's Bow

Peter Rosenberg — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:04:37 GMT

Video With a widely expected announcement to let some YouTube channels charge monthly subscriptions of 99 cents and up, Google is positioning its video site as the anti-cable TV: a video service willing to offer individual channels on the cheap rather...

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
Expected news, but interesting timing in concert with the introduction of the "Television Consumer Freedom Act" by Sen. McCain http://lat.ms/10Aoxy1

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Growing pains: Auto login driving advances in TV Everywhere authentication

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:56:00 GMT

Comcast saw a backlash from both TV critics and subscribers in 2009, when its first TV Everywhere service, Fancast Xfinity Online, debuted.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
Social login, cross-domain authentication, and in-home or trusted device based authentication will prove essential to improving TVE usability and driving user adoption.

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Synacor Cloud ID Social Login Continues Momentum As Customers Launch The Service

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:12:05 GMT

Service Providers Including Midcontinent Now Offer Synacor's First-Of-Its-Kind Social Login, Providing Access to Online pay-TV Content Through Social Accounts Like Facebook, Twitter or Google

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
TV Everywhere adoption has been hampered by usability issues and the "friction" created by multiple login processes. Here is a step in the right direction.
From the article: "Social Login gives Synacor customers the flexibility to offer subscribers access to online pay-TV content with their favorite social accounts like Facebook, Twitter or Google. The offering simultaneously authorizes with the subscriber's pay-TV provider or billing account. Synacor Cloud ID brings the convenience of Social Login to TV Everywhere consumers with the trust of entitlement verification for TV authorization."

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The Future of Cable Bundling: Malone

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:45:28 GMT

Look for cable operators to increase collaboration to counteract over-the-top services like Netflix, John Malone says.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
CNBC: "Malone said that as more alternatives become available and broadband connectivity grows, over-the-top systems, which bypass cable operators for control and distribution, may begin to offer sports content and challenge the established system. If sports networks decoupled from cable distribution and offered consumers standalone services at market prices,"you have an unsustainable model" for cable companies, he said. Despite long-term sports deals signed by cable networks, Malone said, in the next five years, bundling may begin to be relaxed because sports programming in every home becomes "not mandatory."

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Fox's Brennan: TV Everywhere 'is probably our most important online strategy'

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 21:20:10 GMT

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
Sherry Brennan: "We see that people who stream the most also watch the most TV. And the people who watch the least TV also are the people who stream the least. And so we saw this in video on demand 10 or 15 years ago and also in the premium TV market, like HBO: People who like video content and like to consume it, continue to like to consume more of it in more places. So those people are not going away from platform A to watch on platform B, although I do think there will be some shifting of where people watch time-shifted programming, away from DVRs and towards devices as TV Everywhere proliferates. But that's not really cannibalization, that's platform shifting."

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» ‘TV Everywhere’ Ready for Live Linear!

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:57:51 GMT

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
"Though consumers have been slow to warm to ‘TV Everywhere’ services, a new TDG white paper suggests that adding live linear access to the mix would drive widespread use of the service, enhance operator value, and even generate new incremental revenue. The white paper, Bringing Multiscreen Live Linear Programming to Operator ‘TV Everywhere’, discusses TDG’s new research in detail, and presents a convincing case as to why incumbent pay-TV operators should add live linear broadband distribution to their TVE offerings."

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TV Everywhere Faces Challenges Such as Ease of Use, Alternatives - Streaming Media Magazine

Peter Rosenberg — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:53:24 GMT

‘It has to get better, and it will,' says the Synacor executive behind the HBO Go app, speaking at the Next TV Summit.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
..."One major obstacle is that TV Everywhere is simply too difficult for most viewers, and that comes down to the roadblock of authentication. The pleasure of standard television, Bishara said, is that it's passive: turn it on and lean back. Needing to give credentials up front is counter to the idea of fun, simple entertainment. Auto-authentication will help, he said, as will options for signing on with a social network account"

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HBO CEO mulls teaming with broadband partners for HBO GO

Peter Rosenberg — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:48:38 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21 (Reuters) - HBO could widen accessto its HBO GO online streaming service by teaming up withbroadband Internet providers for customers who do not subscribeto a cable TV service,...

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
...
HBO, owned by Time Warner Inc, relies on large financial support from its cable and satellite TV partners to help distribute and promote its shows.
Internet-only rivals such as Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc are trying to disrupt this approach by delivering original programming directly over the Internet.
This is a challenge to HBO, however it would be a risky step for the company to by-pass its traditional distribution partners, which provide HBO with lucrative subscription fees.
There are billions of dollars generated from HBO's existing distribution network and to simply circumvent that would not make business sense, Plepler said in January, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"Doesn't mean we are not mindful that the problem exists," he added.

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I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened - The Oatmeal

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:18:58 GMT

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Despite Media Companies’ Best Efforts, ‘TV Everywhere’ Is Nowhere

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:07:38 GMT

People are streaming online video more than ever before but only 17% of pay TV subscribers have watched cable programming online using so-called “TV Everywhere” services, according to a new study. The study, from research firm GfK Media, is the latest bad news for big media companies’ TV Everywhere initiative, which is aimed at reinforcing the value of traditional cable subscriptions. But since its launch four years ago, the effort has been plagued by delays in launch as a result of difficult rights negotiations between various entertainment companies and pay TV operators – cable, satellite and phone companies.

Peter Rosenberg's insight:
A key point from the article: "...One of the main issues that has been separating entertainment companies and pay TV providers is the question of which will deal directly with consumers, traditionally the province of providers. While providers like Comcast have made a big push to make content available online through their own website or apps – in Comcast’s case, Xfinity — channels like ESPN, Time Warner’s HBO and CNN have their own individual apps and websites with TV programming content. Those give consumers a direct relationship with channels they haven’t traditionally had."

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Cable companies ordered to support HD content streaming within homes by 2014

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 22:33:11 GMT

The FCC has ordered cable operators (and TiVo) to update their cable boxes to include support for HD streaming over home networks to devices like PCs, smart TVs, and tablets. In addition to video streaming, cable boxes must also allow HD video recording on external devices through home networks. By June 2nd 2014 the vast majority of set top boxes will have to support an open standard, although cable companies with fewer than 400,000 subscribers have been given an extra three months to implement the changes. The commission originally ordered cable companies to support network-based streaming back in 2010, but TiVo protested the order saying "if each cable operator deploys set-top boxes with its own understanding of an open industry standard, the result may be an outcome that is neither standard nor open." The FCC has now clarified that an open standard should enable companies to work together without consultation, explaining that video streaming should work even if the cable company and (for example) PC manufacturer have never had any contact with each other.

Both the FCC and Verizon have cited the successor to the DLNA Premium Video Profile, which should be agreed upon at some point next year, as an example of a compliant protocol that cable companies could adopt. In order for the standard to comply, it must support "recordable high-definition video, closed captioning data, service discovery, video transport, and remote control command pass-through." It'll be down to each company to choose the standard they want to use, but whatever happens, customers should be free to watch (and record) their cable TV content on any household device they choose.

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How Netflix wants to change television forever

Peter Rosenberg — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 21:56:42 GMT

Netflix doesn’t just want to compete with traditional pay TV networks like HBO, Showtime and Starz – it wants to change television forever. The company envisions a future for TV in which old-fashioned things like ratings, schedule and recaps simply don’t matter anymore.

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NBC, Verizon Strike TV Everywhere Deal

Peter Rosenberg — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 20:25:58 GMT

NBCU has struck a program carriage deal with Verizon FiOS that includes rights to over-the-top delivery to multiple screens. The wide-ranging deal, announced Monday, includes retransmission of NBC and Telemundo TV stations as well as NBCU cable nets, which include USA, E!, Bravo Media, CNBC, MSNBC,NBC Sports Network, Oxygen Media, Syfy, Telemundo Media and Golf Channel and TV Everywhere rights, which means Verizon can make that programming available for multiplatform viewing by authenticated subs.

.

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What's Going to Kill the TV Business?

Peter Rosenberg — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:25:17 GMT

...What's going to kill the TV business, or at least challenge it, isn't Apple designing the perfect remote or Microsoft designing a superior guide. It's two things.

First is the rising cost of entertainment, which is happening right now. The sitcoms and great dramas you love cost more to produce every year because they're labor intensive. Sports rights are seeing even worse inflation. ESPN recently signed a deal with the NFL to pay 73% more each year for Monday Night Football. So Comcast and its ilk are stuck between rising programming costs and flat-lining middle class wages. That's a problem, and eventually something has to give. But in the short term, providers can merge and channels can be cut and costs can be saved. Expensive shows and sports rights shouldn't destroy the TV business on their own.

Combined with a second trend -- the accelerating exodus of attention away from television -- the TV business might really be in trouble. But this second trend is still more of a projection than a reality. One hundred million households still pay for a bundle of networks. That number isn't really going down. With the pace of household formation tripling in the last year, it could even go up. The number of cord-cutters -- households that have replaced the bundle with over-the-Internet video like Netflix -- is in the low single-digit millions. TV-providers have even found a hedge against cord cutting. They've become Internet-providers and expanded overseas to make up the revenue they're not making here. Cord-cutting is a marginal trend that could sneakily turn mainstream, creating an innovator's dilemma for TV and cable. But not yet.

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