Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

DirecTV is making an Android-powered streaming box. What gives?

“If (AT&T) had a box that came in at $35 or under, consumers would be interested,” Brett Sappington told me. He’s the senior director of research at Parks Associates, which pays extremely close attention to the over-the-top (OTT) — meaning Internet-based TV — space. “They’d buy it just to see if it worked.”

Sappington reasons that a new streaming box isn’t dead on arrival, so long as it has a stellar user interface, is feature-rich, is open to all TV app developers and is relatively cheap. An existing DirecTV Now customer, for instance, may be compelled to test out the company’s box if it promises better streaming performance — say, no buffering during any live streams — and comes with some sort of service-plus-box deal.

From the article "DirecTV is making an Android-powered streaming box. What gives?" by Jennifer Van Grove.

Previously In The News

Revenge of the Antenna

The percentage of broadband-connected households using antenna-delivered broadcast TV has jumped from 9 percent to 15 percent over the past three years. And the percentage getting pay-TV service has d...

AT&T-Time Warner Deal: A Good Merger In The New Media Era Or A Bad Remake?

Pay-TV operators are seeing a "slow erosion of the core business," analyst Brett Sappington at Parks Associates said. "After years of attempts to be more than just a 'dumb pipe,' pay-TV operators h...

See Rovi at CONNECTIONS

At Rovi, we believe entertainment discovery should be simple, seamless and personal. We help consumers find content quickly by allowing them to browse, search and even speak to devices, generating rec...

Consumers to TV Providers: Careful with My Data

One in five internet households report being “highly sensitive” to how TV content providers collect and use data about family members and their activities, according to the latest research from Parks...