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Funny how the prices that Big Media companies charge for their pay TV channels rarely have much to do with the consideration that really matters: How many people actually watch? That’s what makes Verizon‘s new effort to link payments with audience levels, which The Wall Street Journal disclosed this morning, so intriguing — but also such a long-shot. The company’s FiOS TV unit wants to base the fees it pays channels on the number of households where someone tunes in for at least five minutes a month. That wouldn’t necessarily reduce subscribers’ bills, Verizon’s top programming negotiator Terry Denson tells the paper. It would simply help to “stabilize retail prices” by rewarding channels when they attract additional viewers. But Denson acknowledges that it will be hard to persuade programmers to abandon their business models which are built on the presumption that they should extract fees from all subscribers including those who never watch their channels. He says that his talks with owners of small and midsized networks are just “inching forward” and he hasn’t broached the idea with Big Media companies that dominate TV programming. READ MORE »
Can Verizon Tie Pay TV Channel Fees To The Number Of Viewers They Attract?
Verizon Hopes To Link Network Carriage Fees To Actual Viewership Figures: WSJ
It isn’t a la carte but Verizon’s proposal to tie what it pays to carry TV channels to the number of viewers who actually watch is what big media companies might consider “disruptive”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Verizon’s FiOS TV is the nation’s sixth-largest pay-TV provider and has begun negotiations with some smaller companies about basing what Verizon pays on audience size. Under the established industry model, cable and satellite operators pay a monthly per-subscriber fee to carry channels based on the number of homes the channels are available. Verizon’s chief programming negotiator Terry Denson suggests that in many cases “We are paying for a customer who never goes to the channel”. Read More »
Verizon Shares Down Pre-Market On Weaker Than Expected Q4 Earnings
The stock is off about 2% after this morning’s report, which says Verizon took a big hit at the end of last year from Superstorm Sandy and charges for severance and pension expenses, and early debt retirement. The communications company … Read More »
AMC Networks Reaches Carriage Deal With Verizon FiOS
Looks like AMC Networks’ warning to Verizon FiOS‘ 4.6M subscribers that they were “about to lose” channels including AMC, IFC, and WE tv was all for naught. The companies announced they have a pact to keep the channels … Read More »
AMC Networks Warns Verizon FiOS Customers That Channels Could Go Dark
The programming company already has a website warning Verizon FiOS‘ 4.6M subscrubers that they are “about to lose” channels including AMC, IFC, and WEtv when the current contract expires at year end. Now AMC Networks is reaching … Read More »
NBCUniversal Retransmission Deal Grants TV Everywhere Rights To Verizon FiOS
This agreement shouldn’t come as a surprise after NBCUniversal struck a similar deal early this month with Cablevision. The cable and phone companies are engaged in the business equivalent of hand-to-hand combat in the tri-state area … Read More »
Verizon Q3 Earnings Hit Estimates On The Nose As FiOS Growth Slows
CFO Fran Shammo had little to say to analysts this morning about Verizon‘s planned video streaming service with Redbox, aside from the fact that it’s “very close to launching” this quarter and should improve his company’s profits next year. Still, Verizon investors seem content with the company’s direction after it delivered solid Q3 results. The share price is up 1.4% in early trading after Verizon reported net income of $4.3B, +21.2% vs the same period last year, on revenues of $29B, +3.9%. The revenue figure exactly matched Wall Street’s consensus forecast. So did earnings per share, which came in at 64 cents not including charges tied to its payments to TiVo to settle its patent infringement case against the communications giant. The FiOS video business continued to slow: Subscriptions rose just 2.7% vs Q2 to 4.6M. The increase of 119,000 customers fell short of Wall Street’s expectation for 142,000. The company’s FiOS broadband unit also missed analyst targets. It ended up with nearly 5.3M customers, +136,000 vs the consensus forecast of +165,000. “The read-across for cable and satellite incumbents is self-evidently positive; lower growth for FiOS means smaller losses for their competitors,” Bernstein Research’s Craig Moffett says. Read More »
Global Biz Briefs: Aussie Downloads, Univision-FiOS, George Soros, Greece Fest
27% Of Australians Admit To Illegal Downloads
Some 27% of Australians persistently or casually download screen content illegally and at a growing rate over the past 12 months, according to new
research from the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation, a coalition of film and TV organizations. The report showed 86% of people who download or stream illegally at least once a week admit they do so because it’s free. Incongruously, 71% of the 1,654 adults surveyed acknowledge that piracy is stealing but 76% don’t think they contribute to the problem. Some 50% of respondents agree that Internet Service Providers should take more responsibility to prevent the illegal distribution of movies and TV shows online. — Don Groves
Univision Signs New Deal With FiOS
Univision Communications has reached a comprehensive multiyear agrement with Verizon FiOS to continue carrying the U.S. Spanish-language media leader’s Univision and TeleFutura network feeds and owned-and-operated broadcast stations, the cable network Galavisión. Multichannel News reports the deal also includes Univision’s new cable services sports network Univision Deportes, telenovelas network Univision tlnovelas and FOROtv, a Spanish-language news network. The FiOS agreement also includes plans for multiplatform authentication rights for Univision’s upcoming interactive digital video platform for existing and new networks. The FiOS pact is Univision’s third far-reaching affiliate agreement in 2012. Dish Network and AT&T U-verse reached deals in January and May.
Read More »
Nielsen: Cable Loses 2.9M Subscribers As 1.5M U.S. Households Cut Cord In 2011
For all the talk about cord-cutting in the digital era, movement in that direction is relatively slow, as many viewers switch from cable to satellite or telepone providers rather than drop multichannel service altogether. Nielsen reports that 98% of viewing remained on traditional TV in Q4 2011. Cable lost more than 2.9 million subscribers as viewers switched to telephone or satellite providers. U.S. homes subscribing to cable, satellite or telephone providers for their TV service declined 1.5% or about 1.5 million last year, according to figures Nielsen released this week. Subscribers adding telco (about 1.9 million) or satellite service (roughly 280K) weren’t enough to make up the difference.
Read More »
UPDATE: Verizon Denies It Was Forced To Sell Spectrum To Close Comcast Deal
UPDATE, 6:45 AM: CFO Fran Shammo, the only Verizon exec on today’s call with analysts, blasted commentators who said yesterday that the telecom giant was forced announce that it will auction off some of its airwave spectrum — if the government approves its deal to buy licenses held by Comcast and other cable companies. “This is nothing near a fire sale,” he says. If Verizon doesn’t like the offers it receives “then we won’t go through with the sale.” He also denied charges that the company was forced to sell the spectrum “because we ran into a roadblock at the FCC,” which — along with the Justice Department — must approve the cable deal in order for it to close. “We’re being good stewards” of the publicly owned airwaves, he said. Most of the questions dealt with Verizon’s growing smartphone and wireless data business. The company says it now offers its speedy 4G LTE service in 230 markets, about two-thirds of the country. About 9.1% of its wireless customers have 4G devices, up from 0.6% a year ago. While Shammo steered clear of specifics about the earnings hit Verizon takes for subsidizing iPhones, he says that the company is supporting Microsoft’s effort to build what he called “a third ecosystem” for Windows-powered mobile devices in addition to Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Android systems. He’s bullish about tablet sales: Verizon sold 390,000 in Q1, up 60% vs the same period last year, but probably can improve on that. There was a slowdown in anticipation of the roll out of the new iPad, which was only available for two weeks in the period. Read More »
Verizon Says Redbox Deal Makes It More Powerful In Talks With Hollywood
Verizon is starting to hold “major discussions with content providers on cross-synergies” for the phone giant’s still mysterious streaming video venture with Redbox — which is due to go live in August — CFO Francis Shammo told investors today at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecom Conference. Verizon’s hoping that the new offering, seen as a potential rival to Netflix, will give it more leverage when it negotiates programming deals for its FiOS video service which competes with cable and satellite. “We were last to market and, obviously, the content providers made us pay a premium price for that,” Shammo says. But in its new negotiations with studios, Verizon’s seeking “a content play for all of our platforms, not just for one.” He notes that FiOS is now the fifth largest video provider, Verizon Wireless has about 100M subscribers, and Redbox attracts about 30M customers to its 35,000 kiosks. There’s still no word on what the venture with Redbox will offer and how much it will cost. The companies have said that it will be a national service, involve electronic sales and rentals, and include a tie-in with Redbox’s DVD rental kiosks. Verizon’s wireline unit will own 65% of the joint venture. ”Wireless is not involved,” Shammo says. Read More »
Verizon Earnings Hit By Unusual Expenses Including Storm And Strike
The company’s shares are down slightly in pre-market trading after it reported 4Q earnings that were somewhat lighter than analysts expected. The phone giant said that it ended the quarter with a $212M loss, down from a $4.6B profit in … Read More »
Cablevision Finally Gives Up MSG Fight After Court Swats Down Appeal
It will be interesting to see whether Cablevision ever discloses how much it spent on legal bills since 2009 to prevent customers of Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s U-verse from seeing HD feeds of MSG and MSG+. The regional sports channels are owned by Madison Square Garden, a company that’s controled by the Dolan family which also controls Cablevision. Whatever the cost, it seems to have been for naught: Cablevision today threw in the towel in one of the industry’s longest and most baffling battles after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied the company’s appeal of an FCC order in September requiring MSG to provide the HD feeds to two of its toughest competitors. FiOS customers in the New York area began to receive the sports channels in HD today; U-verse should have them soon. Read More »
Verizon Chief Mum On Netflix Challenge, But Says He Eyed Hulu: UBS Confab
It’s hard to figure out Verizon’s place in the infotainment world — and CEO Lowell McAdam kept things murky in his appearance today at the UBS Annual Global Media and Communications Conference. He wouldn’t address this week’s surprising report that the phone giant might launch its own national movie and TV streaming service, potentially pitting it against Netflix. But he’s clearly interested in the business: McAdam said that Verizon seriously considered bidding for Hulu. “The jury’s out, but I do believe there’s a place for over-the-top” — jargon for a digital alternative to traditional pay TV — he said. “That model has yet to be determined and I hope we’ll be a player in that.” Wouldn’t that hurt Verizon’s FiOS, which provides a cable-like TV service to 4M subscribers? “Over-the-top can be complementary,” McAdam says. ”I don’t think it’s one thing or the other.” He was equally certain that FiOS “will not be disadvantaged” by Verizon’s new agreement with Comcast and other cable operators: The phone company will pay them $3.6B for their wireless spectrum — but also give them opportunities to sell Verizon Wireless phone service, even in markets where they compete with FiOS. McAdam says that he expects FiOS to eventually capture as much as 50% of the video and broadband customers in the markets it serves. Read More »
Verizon Plans To Take On Netflix With Web Service: Reuters
Verizon Communications plans to launch a movie-and-TV streaming service that would compete with Netflix, cable TV systems and potentially Amazon, Reuters reported Tuesday. In a strategy that would make the service available to 85 million US households, Verizon is … Read More »
Comcast Hints That ‘Harry Potter’ Will Go To Additional Universal Parks: UBS Confab
Comcast CFO Mike Angelakis says that The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter was so successful for Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure that it became “a reset mechanism” for the theme park. But he stopped short of confirming reports … Read More »
Verizon’s Fight To Offer MSG Networks In HD Goes Into Overtime As Cablevision Files Another Appeal
One of cable’s most irksome long-running battles isn’t over yet: Cablevision is appealing an FCC order that requires MSG — which the cable operator controls — to offer HD feeds of its two New York regional sports channels to Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse. That announcement followed a statement from Verizon today saying that it had “a home-team win in overtime” and promising to offer HD versions of MSG and MSG+ in December to FiOS TV customers in all service packages except FiOS TV Local. The HD feeds are a big deal to fans of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, the Buffalo Sabres and the New Jersey Devils.
Cablevision’s appeal continues a dispute that began in 2009 – and that seemed to have reached an end last week. The FCC formally approved a decision from its Media Bureau requiring MSG to deal with FiOS and AT&T, and the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused Cablevision’s request to stay the FCC order. But Cablevision says it is returning to the court for a stay while it seeks a review of the FCC’s orders. “We continue to believe that an unbiased review of the data can only result in one conclusion: that there has been no competitive harm to the nation’s two largest phone companies,” Cablevision says. “In a highly competitive marketplace like New York, a forced sharing of offerings only deters companies from investing and innovating, which hurts both fair competition and consumers.” Read More »
Fox Offers Online VOD Service To Verizon FiOS And Mediacom Customers
LOS ANGELES – Fox Networks today announced that Verizon FiOS TV and Mediacom subscribers will have access to FOX on Demand (VOD), and both providers are scheduled to offer FOX’s recently launched online authentication service.
Verizon launched FOX On Demand on October 1, and Mediacom will be launching the service in the coming weeks. FOX On Demand offers viewers an opportunity to easily access and catch up with their favorite FOX programming. Almost all FOX primetime programming, including GLEE, FAMILY GUY, BONES, RAISING HOPE, and THE SIMPSONS, is available for viewing on VOD the day after each episode airs and remains on the service for 28 days. This includes FOX’s new Fall series, such as THE X FACTOR, NEW GIRL, and TERRA NOVA. (THE X FACTOR is available for the three days following air.)
Xbox Live Partners Up For TV Content
Xbox Live, the premium online service of Microsoft’s Xbox 360, today unveiled a slew of content deals that will boost the console’s entertainment offerings beginning around the holidays and in more than 20 countries. The news began leaking last week of partnerships, but the announcement included more than 40 providers like Bravo, Comcast, HBO GO, Verizon FiOS and Syfy in the U.S. and international partners like BBC in the UK. The ultimate goal is to make Microsoft’s video game console a one-stop shop for entertainment where users can switch easily between video games, DVDs and entertainment content. Here’s the release: Read More »
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