Light Reading

The 90-minute session will consist of a research presentation, fireside chat and panel discussion. So far, the speaking roster includes: Steve Nason, director of research at Parks Associates; Mitchell Weinraub, director of product management at Dish Network's Sling TV/AirTV operations; Jim DeChant, VP of technology at News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting; and Rob Holmes, VP of programming at Roku. More speakers are expected to join as well.

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Turning the new Chromecast into a fully fledged Android TV device could also be an important retail addition as Google attempts to cut into the streaming platform lead of Roku (36.9 million active accounts at the end of 2019) and Amazon's Fire TV (about 40 million active users). According to a Parks Associates study from the fall of 2019, Chromecast made up just 11% of the US media streaming device market, down from 21% three years earlier.

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New research from Parks Associates, Technology Market Assessment: 5G Network Services, finds that more than 33% of US broadband households cite some level of familiarity with 5G and over 40% of US broadband households are interested in 5G.

Technology Market Assessment: 5G Network Services examines several aspects of 5G, including the condition of the mobile market, consumer sentiments toward 5G services and products, service availability, use cases, and competition. It explo ...read more

A free trial for Apple TV+ would follow a typical game plan used by most SVoD services to get people in the door and take a look around. About 58% of US broadband homes that trial an OTT video subscription service convert to paying subscribers, according to Parks Associates.

Apple teased Apple TV+ in March, announcing plans to offer the service on devices outside its own ecosystem that will feature a slate of original series and documentaries, with big names such as Steven S ...read more

Altice USA is also jumping into this game as consumer adoption of smart speakers is on the rise. According to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) data, the US installed base for smart speaker products climbed to 66 million at the end of 2018, up from 37 million in the prior year, and is led by Amazon. Parks Associates, meanwhile, predicts that smart speakers with voice assistants will reach 47% of US broadband households by 2022. 

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"Piracy is a complex issue that cannot be addressed with a single solution or by targeting a single use case," said Brett Sappington, senior research director and principal analyst at Parks Associates in a statement. "Most pirates also subscribe to at least one OTT service. They are not simply thieves looking to steal content but are video enthusiasts who engage with many different services. OTT services could better reach these consumers through ad-based content, which also ali ...read more

Credentials sharing is not a new problem for service providers. As the OTT and pay-TV landscapes continue to evolve to accommodate entertainment on multiple devices, credentials sharing has followed suit, increasing in both magnitude and in the diversity of motivations -- from casual password sharing among family and friends to large-scale, for-profit accounts run by fraudsters. The ability to watch from multiple screens has had the unintended consequence of contributing to ille ...read more

Brett Sappington, senior director of research at Parks Associates, agrees that Disney+ has the best shot at being wildly successful, and that securing fewer than 23 million Disney+ subs globally by 2023 would vastly "undershoot" expectations.
But Sappington also stressed that Disney is taking on some additional risk with a direct-to-consumer offering, as the company won't get the same guarantees that Disney locks down when licensing its content to others. "That's really a big ...read more