In this week's round-up of recent happenings of interest to all cordcutters, not just Roku users: PC World announces their 2016 cord-cutter awards, Mohu launches standalone box to stream OTA programming to devices throughout your home, Sling's Airwave now available, and more.
PC World has announced the winners of their 2016 cord-cutter awards. Winners include:
- Best new hardware: Roku Streaming Stick
- Most-improved streaming platform: Amazon Fire TV
- Best new streaming service: Seeso
- Most improved streaming service: Sling TV
- Most surprising embrace of cord cutting: The National Football League
Mohu, manufacturer of popular indoor leaf antennas, has created a stand-alone device for wireless transmission of OTA signals to Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire devices, Chromecast and other devices. The Airwave lets you watch OTA programming on multiple TVs throughout your house, as well as mobile devices.
While Airwave requires the use of a Mohu app, the AirTV box is now available from Sling TV for those who want to merge Netflix, Sling TV, and local TV into a single interface.
The CBS broadcast network and some of their cable programming will be included with Hulu's live streaming service, which is expected to launch sometime this year. Sports programming, including CBS NFL game broadcasts and the NCAA Division 1 Basketball Championship, will be on Hulu along with the CBS Sports Network. The service is expected to cost less then $40 per month.
Westinghouse, Seiki and Element will begin delivering 4K TVs with Amazon Fire TV built-in later this year. The TVs will be able to access all of the apps, games and Alexa skills that are available on other Fire devices and will include a remote with a microphone that can be used to access Alexa.
But don't count Roku out on the smart TV front. One-hundred Roku TV models are now available in North America, and a 50 percent increase in the number of models is forecast to be available in North America by the end of 2017, with Roku TVs reportedly accounting for 13 percent of smart TV sales in the U.S.
Tablo, which offers a Roku channel for use with its DVR for OTA broadcasts, announced an antenna streaming dongle and software that turns your Android TV device into a DVR. The device will initially be offered for Nvidia Shield.
Nearly one-third of U.S. household with broadband subscribe to more than one over-the-top streaming service according to Parks Associates research. The most common combo? Both Netflix and Amazon Video are subscribed to by 12% of U.S. broadband households. Average spending on OTT services was $7.95 per month.
