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

Do YOU give your Netflix password to friends? AI that can track down users who illegally share accounts is unveiled

Synamedia’s new AI isn’t just for small-time fee avoiders. Additional research from Parks Associates found that by 2021, credentials sharing will account for $9.9 billion of losses in pay-TV revenu...

NAB Puts The Future Focus On OTT In Vegas

In other OTT highlights Parks Associates will cover their latest research in “Adoption, Churn, and the Risky Lives of OTT Video Services;” while panel “Mobile Video’s Explosion: Personalized TV Has Ar...

Alexa Leads Way In Ever-Growing Smart Speaker Segment.

Alexa is certainly making herself at home. Growth of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home have more than doubled over the last year alone. In fact, a new smart home research report f...

'Alexa, multiply': Voice assistants show huge growth

Usage of voice-activated assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant remains relatively low. But it is growing at an impressive rate. In fourth quarter of last year, 12 percent of U.S. b...