Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Hulu to launch non-stop customer service as it readies live TV

The increased spending on customer service comes as Hulu is about to go head-to-head with internet channels that offer live TV from AT&T's DirecTVNow and Dish Network Corp's Sling TV.

The services have had hiccups - like shows freezing, viewers getting error messages and system crashes. Their owners also have large customer service staffs already handling calls from their traditional pay TV customers, said Brett Sappington, senior director of research at Parks Associates.

The stakes are high for Hulu, which has a customer defection rate of 50 percent, according to Parks Associates, a Dallas-based market research firm.

"Live TV is a challenge particularly for events like the Super Bowl and the Oscars which draw millions of subscribers all at the same time," Sappington said. "You are never sure what's going to break until you have a few million people watching at the same time."

From the article "Hulu to launch non-stop customer service as it readies live TV".

Previously In The News

The streaming wars are flooding us with TV

Password sharing cost streaming companies about $9.1 billion last year, according to data from the research firm Parks Associates. From the article "The streaming wars are flooding us with TV".

Eero’s New Wi-Fi Routers Are Step One In Its Plan To Become A Smart-Home Giant

The early support for Thread may even hint at where Eero is going next. Tom Kerber, an analyst for Parks Associates, notes that one of the main features of Thread is that it’s decentralized. Instead o...

The U.S. has nearly 300 OTT services to choose from

Using its OTT Video Market Tracker tool, Parks Associates has found that the number of OTT services in the United States has reached nearly 300. The firm said the total is more than double the amou...

Comcast is totally okay with you not having an Xfinity set-top box

“Pay-TV providers want to retain subscribers, so they want to make sure that you stay inside their ecosystem,” says Brett Sappington, a media analyst at Parks Associates. “If you don’t have a reason t...