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

WD Debuts My Passport Studio Portable Drives For Mac Computers

According to research firm Parks Associates, the average U.S. broadband household currently has over 120 GB of digital media and files which is projected to grow to over 1 TB (terabytes) of data by 20...

16% of Spanish Pay-TV Households Subscribed for First Time in 2015

Connected Consumer in Europe reveals Spanish consumers are more likely than consumers in other Western European markets either to have never had pay TV or to have cancelled pay TV in favor of online v...

BMW’s Vision For A World Of Connected Cars

“We’re moving past the early adopter phase of connected cars,” says Jennifer Kent, a director at Parks. “Most of the usage is still core to the driving experience: Mapping and navigation, maintenance...

As Cord Cutting Grows 85% of Americans 22–37 Subscribe to a Streaming Service

This week the research group Parks Associates released an updated look at the state of streaming video. According to the study, 85% of American millennials (people born between 1981 and 1996) now subs...