Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Roku OS Missing Features Explained: Discovery and Developer Limits

Roku's market position has a way of making the platform look more capable than it is. Across U.S. broadband households, Roku OS accounts for 28% of connected TV platform usage, ahead of Samsung Tizen at 23%, with Amazon Fire TV, LG webOS, and Vizio SmartCast trailing at a distance, according to Parks Associates research.    

Parks Associates Director Michael Goodman puts the stakes plainly: operating systems determine what content consumers see, how services are positioned, and how advertising is delivered. With AI-driven search and  personalization becoming the new competitive standard for TV operating systems, the firm argues that platform control will only matter more in the years ahead. This is the context in which Roku's specific shortcomings land.           

What they may not yet prove is that Roku has closed the gap on the deeper AI-driven discovery layer Parks Associates identifies as the next competitive frontier. The firm argues that AI-driven personalization, the kind that doesn't just catalog content but anticipates it, is where platform competition is heading. Roku's What to Watch feature aggregates titles across services, which is useful.

Roku's 28% share is stable and its value proposition is real. According to Parks Associates, the platform earns its position for a wide range of users, particularly those who primarily want free content, simple setup, and a reliable experience without active management. Nothing in this analysis changes that.

Parks Associates projects that AI-driven personalization will become the standard competitive axis for TV operating systems in the coming years, with platform ecosystems growing more consequential as that shift plays out.

From the Cord-Cutters.gadgethacks article, "Roku vs other smart TV platforms: default choice versus deliberate choice

Previously In The News

AT&T's DirecTV Now Is A Big Bundle When Consumers Want Skinny

DirecTV Now, something of an online replica of AT&T's satellite offering, will face more competition than its analog ever had on land. There's the genuinely skinny bundle of Dish Network's (DISH) Slin...

Fox CEO James Murdoch Says Streaming Platforms Better Business Than Going Direct-to-Consumer

Nonetheless, Dish Network's (DISH) Sling TV is said to have attracted about 1 million subscribers since launching nearly two years ago, according to Parks Associates, a Dallas industry monitor. Fox is...

A Dramatic Change to the Way We Live and Work

“The way we work and live will change quite dramatically,” is how Stuart Sikes characterizes the impact of connected and smart home. Speaking at CONNECTIONS™ 16, Sikes points out that things such as v...

Who Will Survive the Ever-Crowded Market for Subscription Video-on-Demand?

At last count, 27 subscription-based video streaming platforms were launched in the U.S. in 2016, according to Dallas market research group Parks Associates. A handful were started by large media c...