Back in January, we reported from CES 2014 that OTT set box company Roku is teaming up with manufacturers like TCL and Hisense to produce TV sets with built-in Roku service. And now, these models of Roku-powered TVs are finally ready for orders. With support for over 1,500 OTT content channels such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and Amazon Videos, this new breed of TV set could render cable set-top boxes unnecessary and, given time, obsolete.
Tag: ott
Creative Emmy Round-Up: 7 Netflix Wins & Apple Ad Awarded
The Creative Emmy 2014 was announced on Sunday, and among the long list of new winners, Netflix and Apple stand out from the crowd.
Netflix continues to disrupt the entertainment content market by reaping a whopping total of seven awards with its original content. Three awards went to its hit prison dramedy Orange Is The New Black, which solidifies the show’s frontrunner status in the race for this year’s Best Comedy Series. It is worth noting that all of its award-winning shows and documentaries could never have been made if not for Netflix’s subscription-based business model, as they are evidently too edgy for ad-supported broadcasters and basic cable.
Meanwhile, Apple beats out strong competitors like Budweiser and Nike to take home the award for Best Commercial with its acclaimed holiday spot “Misunderstood” from last year, once again showcasing the tech giant’s incredible marketing flair.
Why Piracy Surges In Times Of Sudden Demand
Since the sad news of Robin Williams’ untimely death broke, the Internet has been coping in its own ways. Amazon has seen a sharp rise in sales of DVD titles featuring the nationally beloved comedian. More interestingly, however, a large portion of the grieving Internet has turned to piracy in honor of the late Academy Award winner, highlighting how digital media can meet sudden spikes of demand.
How Amazon Is Testing Its New Original Shows
When it comes to producing original content, Amazon is often overshadowed by its major competitor Netflix, but it’s quickly catching up. Their populist method of letting the audience decide the fate of its new pilots, for instance, points to an innovative way for the entertainment industry to give audiences what they want. Another new thing Amazon is trying this year is to take a page out of the Netflix playbook by attaching big Hollywood names to its original contents. How these efforts measure up to the dominance of Netflix, however, remains to be seen.
CBS: Tapping Into The OTT Market?
CBS is said to be jumping into the over-the-top (OTT) market by allowing its production division, CBS Studios, to develop shows directly for streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. As evidenced by the streaming deal they struck with Amazon last year for their summer hit “Under the Dome”, CBS has been clearly eyeing the potential in teaming up with the Internet-based challengers for a while now.
This move serves as a testimony to the growing importance of OTT services in the industry, and CBS seems to recognize that maybe there may be room for many competitors in this fractured market.
ABC News Viewers Loves Watching Live on Apple TV
ABC News channel launched its native streaming app on Apple TV a month ago, and the viewers seems to be loving it. Due to the closed nature of Apple’s ecosystem, stats on app usage on their platform are rarely publicized, but today, ABC reported that ABC News users watch 50% more live video on Apple TV than on desktop and mobile combined. This report once again proves that the American audience is embracing over-the-top video channels.
Why The New Planes Got Rid Of The Seat-Back TVs
If you’ve recently taken a flight on a brand new commercial plane, you may have noticed that the traditional in-flight entertainment system, namely those tiny screens embedded on the back of seats, has gone missing. This change is propelled by two major reasons. Firstly, flyers generally prefer using their own gadgets for personalized entertainment. Secondly, with the proliferation of in-flight WiFi, many airlines are charging a hefty fee for the Internet connection. This new development neatly dovetails with the rapid rise of OTT streaming services which will undoubtedly become popular entertainment options once available in-flight.
Netflix Signs Peering Agreement With AT&T
After signing similar deals with Comcast and Verizon earlier this year, Netflix has now signed a peering agreement with AT&T in aim to improve streaming speed for its subscribers using AT&T’s network, which have typically ranked low on Netflix’s list of ISP speeds. Following its report of record-high subscriber number and revenue, Netflix unquestionably has the capital to keep paying ISPs to sidestep the bottleneck in connection and secure the quality of its service across different networks. But as the leader in OtT video market keeps growing stronger, it is entirely possible that one day the ISPs would be the ones paying for Netflix’s service, just like the way they are paying the cable TV providers for their content now.
Google Reportedly Buying Game-Streaming Platform Twitch For $1 Billion
One billion dollars. That’s the reported price Google is willing to pay to get Twitch, the biggest real-time game-streaming platform, into its digital empire. The deal has yet to become official, but the industry is already buzzing about all its implications. Twitch provides the players with platform to broadcast their gameplay sessions on PC, Xbox One, or PlayStation 4 live to online viewers, building a community of over 50 million of monthly active gamers around the world, which would provide Google with a enormous advertising opportunity. Furthermore, this billion-dollar deal, if confirmed, would not only validate the emerging market of live-streamed gameplay, but also seem to signal an upcoming transformation of YouTube’s current streaming model. It’s an acquisition that could potentially upend the status quo of OtT video market, bringing Twitch’s live-streaming model into the mix.
Update : In an interesting turn of events, Amazon has closed a deal to buy Twitch for $970 million. — Aug. 25, 2014
Netflix Reports Record-High 50 Million Users Worldwide
In its second quarter report released today, Netflix notes it has crossed the milestone of 50 million members, with 36.24 million domestic subscribers and 13.8 million international ones. In comparison, Time Warner claims 127 million HBO subscribers, while Amazon coyly admits that it has just over 20 million Prime subscribers. The company also reported 1.34 billion in revenue, doubling the profit it had last year.
As Netflix expands around the globe and heaping up the profits, the company also seems to have become the major force advocating for Net Neutrality, which it once again, unsurprisingly, asserts its support for in the report. Its battle with big cable and ISP companies over this issue will most likely intensify as Netflix continues to gain strength from the fast-growing OtT market.
