Sling TV, the Dish Network-owned OTT-TV service, is offering a deep one-month discount, along with access to its premium-level cloud DVR offering. Under a promotion announced Tuesday that’s a clear bid to attract new customers, Sling TV is offering the first month of service for $10 per month. It’s also including DVR Plus, a cloud DVR with 200 hours of storage that regularly sells for an additional $5 per month. The promo applies to both the Sling Orange and Sling Blue packages, which typically sell for $35 per month each. Sling TV is also bundling Orange and Blue together for $25 for the first month.
TiVo has lobbed yet another lawsuit at Comcast, alleging that the cable operator is infringing on six patents that, it claims, have linkages to Comcast-supplied DVR and non-DVR set-top box devices and broadband gateways and various services and apps that run on them.
Exclusives
Amazon.com is developing a new device that records live TV, working around cable providers and encroaching on TiVo Corp.’s market, according to a person familiar with the plans. The device, dubbed “Frank” inside Amazon, is a new type of digital video recorder for the streaming era. It would include physical storage and connect to Amazon’s existing Fire TV boxes, the living room hub for the company’s online video efforts, according to the person.
DVR maker TiVo today officially confirmed the launch of its new DVR, the TiVo BOLT VOX, and its smaller counterpart, the TiVo Mini Vox, following yesterday’s leak. As had been reported, the biggest change is that these are the first TiVo DVRs to include a voice remote control.
A survey by the Leichtman Research Group says that 54% of U.S. TV homes have Netflix, versus 53% that have a DVR. This is the first time that TV homes with Netflix (including those sharing Netflix passwords) have topped the time-shifting technology. Six years ago, by way of comparison, 44% of TV households had a DVR and 28% had Netflix.
The service launches in beta in December, initially only for those customers with Roku, and it’s meant to directly take on rivals like Playstation Vue. Sarah Perez writes that “the DVR will offer conflict-free recording, as well as the ability to pause, rewind and fast-forward through your recorded content.”
Samsung no longer has to fear a patent infringement suit from TiVo: The DVR pioneer — recently bought by Rovi, which changed its name — announced a “broad intellectual property license” with Samsung that includes a stay of their litigation “upon satisfaction of certain conditions.”
New drama Designated Survivor leads the list with more 18-49s time-shifting the show than watching it live. ABC has four of the top seven. Big Bang and Empire are up there too.
And more reason for networks to push for deals based on seven-day playback numbers. Five shows at least double their 18-49 premiere rating. ABC’s Designated Survivor sets a record.
There was a 12% drop in time-shifted program viewing on a monthly basis among viewers 18+ to 25 hours and 21 minutes for the first quarter of 2016 versus the same period a year ago.
A new study from the Video Advertising Bureau shows the youngest in the demo, 18-24s, devote just 18% of TV time to playback, much preferring live TV, which reflects their differing viewing habits as much as anything else.
Fox Broadcasting and Dish Network have finally come to an agreement to settle a bitter lawsuit over the ad-skipping, place-shifting Hopper. On Wednesday, court papers were filed stipulating to a dismissal, marking the end of a legal battle that has lasted nearly four years and resulted in judicial guidance on newer uses of copyrighted programming.
Eighty-one percent of U.S. homes have either set-top DVR technology; subscription video-on-demand service Netflix; or use video-on-demand from a pay TV provider.
Stephen Burke, chief executive officer of NBCUniversal, worries about the future of cable networks that air heavy schedules of rerun programming. Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show here on Thursday, Burke said: “If you carry a show on cable that’s a rerun, it’s hard to maintain the same ratings” when you have many other media content choices.
A federal judge has extended a stay in Fox and Dish Network’s litigation over Dish’s AutoHop ad-skipping service, giving both sides more time to reach a settlement.
TiVo is heading back to court, this time with a patent infringement suit against Samsung. Its DVRs improperly use TiVo’s processes that enable viewers to watch one show while recording another, the company says. Over the last few years TiVo prevailed in a series of suits and settlements with Google, Cisco, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon and Dish Network.
Anvato | Wynn Hotel | Website: www.anvato.com TV Everywhere platform provider Anvato has introduced Anvato Cloud DVR, a fully integrated, pure software cloud recording and storage solution for TVE. Expanding […]
Why People Really Time-Shift Shows
More people are time-shifting TV shows than ever before. But while many of them do skip the ads, it’s become more and more clear that is not the primary reason people use DVRs. Instead, it’s all about controlling their own schedules.
A new survey says 62% of U.S. TV homes subscribing to a pay TV service have a digital video recorder — up from 41% from five years ago, this, according to Leichtman Research Group. Overall, 76% of U.S. TV homes have either a DVR, use video on demand or have a subscription to Netflix. Twenty-six percent have two services, and 11% have all three. Research comes from a November 2014 telephone survey of 1,233 adults age 18 and older among continental U.S. TV homes.
Grading the Big Five networks, plus Univision and Telemundo, following a year in which viewers turned increasingly to DVRs and new shows struggled.
A handful of broadcast shows are getting as many DVR viewers as live ones. That means the networks will beat the drum even harder for C7 deals come spring.
TiVo is expected to unveil on Tuesday a new DVR that can record 26,000 hours — or three years’ worth — of standard-definition TV programming. It can record about 4,000 hours in HD. The DVR is called TiVo Mega and will cost interested TV fans $5,000
TiVo, a pioneer of digital-video recorders, is offering a DVR for people who don’t pay for cable or satellite TV services in a move designed to win over former Aereo customers. The TiVo Roamio OTA DVR can record content from broadcast networks including ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as stream Internet video from Netflix and YouTube, according to a statement today. The device costs $49.99 with service fees of $14.99 per month and a one-year commitment, and will be available at Best Buy stores starting Sept. 14.
In the world of stuff, Tablo is the set top box for people who are really satisfied with less, but would like to get it on their own terms. This is a device, still in the pre-market phase, that lets you record over the air television but really, that’s it. Tablo. then, is for people who just say no, a little. But that’s a growing number of people who don’t really want to spend a bundle to get a bundle of channels they don’t watch.
Increased recording capabilities, along with streaming and downloading features for portable and mobile devices, are superpowers inherent in new pay TV digital video recorders.
The new devices face more competition than TiVos did when they debuted in 1999. Cable and satellite TV companies are improving their own DVR offerings, while stand-alone devices such as Roku, Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast seek to simplify Internet streaming on big-screen TVs. Meanwhile, game consoles and smartphones now come with apps to do much of what TiVo does. With its new Roamio DVR, TiVo is counting on the notion that avid television viewers prefer one device to do it all.
The Consumer Electronics Association along with the Computer and Communications Industry Association and the Internet Association tells a federal court that the Dish Hopper service that allows consumers to record and zap ads in all network broadcasting does not violate copyright law. Broadcasters have sued Dish, claiming copyright violations and breach of distribution contracts.
The Genie has more storage, can be used in more rooms and offers an optional service to recommend shows — pitting it directly against rival Dish’s much-advertised Hopper.
Happy 20th Birthday To Retrans Consent
It’s fitting that Dispatch Broadcast Group’s settlement of a carriage dispute with Dish Network came when it did, for today marks 20 years since the passage of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act, the measure that created retransmission consent and a second revenue stream that is now critical to local television.
Take Your Cue From Moonves: Skip Dish
All broadcasters should follow the lead of CBS’s Leslie Moonves and threaten to use their retrans clout to come down hard on Dish Network and the Auto Hop commercial-skipping feature of its Hopper DVR. Allowing subscribers to skip all spots in recorded programs at the touch of a button is a broadcasting killer.
