In this week's rundown of recent news items for cord cutters: Hulu to spend $2.5B on content in 2017, Food Network is top "must-have" channel among potential cord cutters, Verizon plans OTT streaming TV service, and more.
Food Network is the top "must-have" channel among potential cord cutters according to a new study by Beta Research. AMC, Discovery Channel, ESPN, FX, The Weather Channel, TNT and History were other must-have basic cable network among consumers very interested in dropping cable TV. The top channels among all viewers in the study? Investigation Discovery topped the list, which also included ESPN, Discovery, AMC, History, Food Network, HGTV and National Geographic Channel.
Variety reports that Hulu plans to spend $2.5 billion on content in 2017. Speaking at the Paley Center for Media in New York, Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins also said that "Hulu plans to launch seven new original series in the next 6-9 months." Variety also says that Hulu's budget trails spending by Netflix ($6 billion) and Amazon Prime Video ($4.5 billion).
Also from Variety comes a report that "Networks' streaming apps make minimal revenue impact (for now)." Addressing TV networks' direct-to-consumer apps and services such as CBS All Access, Media & Money Columnist Jan Dawson writes, "The subscriber numbers for these services are growing nicely, but the contribution they're making to overall revenues for their parent companies are still pretty marginal — for now." Despite the current impact to the bottom line, Dawson concludes that "At a time when there are growing threats to the cable network business due to cord cutting and online-native streaming services, TV companies' direct-to-consumer offerings will be an important bulwark against revenue shrinkage."
There is a "widening age gap among pay-TV subscribers" according to a new TiVo study, reported by FieceCable, which "found that loyal pay TV subscribers are aging." This age gap is supported by an eMarketer study that "estimates the number of U.S. pay TV viewers ages 55 and older will continue to rise through 2021, while the share of younger pay-TV subs will decline."
eMarketer also predicts that "in 2017 22.2 million U.S. adults will cut the cord on cable, satellite or telco TV service — up 33% over 2016," according to MSN. "Overall, 196.3 million U.S. adults will have traditional pay TV (cable, satellite or telco) this year, down 2.4% compared with 2016, eMarketer predicts. By 2021, that will drop to 181.7 million, a decline of nearly 10% from 2016."
TechCrunch says that "YouTube's app is dominating mobile video by monthly users, time spent." The article, based on new data released by App Annie, says that "Americans spent nearly a billion hours watching YouTube videos on Android this past July" and "YouTube's Android app alone accounted for roughly 80 percent, or 9.5 billion hours, of the 12 billion total hours consumers spent using the top 10 video streaming apps on Android during the twelve months ending in July 2017."
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said that "An over-the-top platform is absolutely critical for us," according to a Bloomberg report, and the company "will decide in the next six months how to deliver an online TV service." Previous indications were that Verizon was going to launch a streaming television service this summer to compete with Sling TV and DirecTV NOW, but "Verizon was struggling to sign up TV networks to get the service started."
Comcast is also launching a Sling TV rival and MarketRealist says that an Xfinity Instant TV broad rollout is expected to begin toward the end of this quarter. The offering, which is "aimed at Millennials who are running away from traditional pay-TV" is currently being tested on a regional basis.
