Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Apple TV Upgrade: Upside Limited Without Content

Apple has been working for some time on a cable killer, and is looking to combine broadcast and select cable networks for a cheaper, better-looking bundle. But that isn’t the extent of the company’s content ambitions: As Variety reported exclusively, the company has even made overtures to execs in Hollywood about producing its own original programming, with the goal of building out a production unit that could one day churn out TV shows or even movies.

But no Apple originals are in the foreseeable future, and negotiations with networks to license channels have been slow-moving, forcing the company to postpone the launch of the service until some time in 2016.

Without that content infusion, Apple TV is just another box — and an expensive one: Numerous leaks point to a base model launch price of $149.

That’s significantly more than the competition, which already has been eating Apple’s lunch with cheap boxes and streaming sticks. Roku, whose entry-level devices retail for just $50, sold 34% of all streaming devices in the U.S. in 2014. Apple TV’s market share was just 13%, according to data from Parks Associates, which also has sales of Google’s Chromecast streaming stick and Amazon’s Fire TV devices surpassing those of Apple’s hockey puck.

Consumers are voting with their wallets, argued Parks Associates research director Barbara Kraus: “If I just want to stream, I can do that with a $35 stick.”

From the article "Apple TV Upgrade: Upside Limited Without Content" by Janko Roettgers.

Previously In The News

Is Streaming Fragmentation Reviving Piracy?

Twenty-three percent of respondents also said that they thought piracy was “OK,” a jump from 14% in 2019, when the streaming market was less saturated, according to MediaPost’s reporting of Parks...

How fuboTV Plans to ‘Expand the Breadth of Sports’ to their Live TV Streaming Service

There are 75 million people in the US who have an MVPD service and based on the most recent Parks Associates report, 43% of cable TV households will likely switch to a virtual MVPD streaming service....

Streaming service bundles are a new way to attract subscribers

The demand for over-the-top (OTT) media services exploded when the global coronavirus pandemic forced millions of people to refrain from social gatherings and stringent lockdown measures heavily regul...

Hear the future: IoT voice control

Topping market research firm Parks Associates’ list of Top 10 Consumer IoT Trends in 2017 is this: Voice control is vying to become the primary user interface for the smart home and connected lifestyl...