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

Majority Of Smartwatch Owners Have Paid Music Streaming Sub

Owners of wearable devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers are far more likely to subscribe to paid streaming audio or music services such as Apple Music, Spotify or Pandora One, according t...

Will Apple TV kill the cable box? Not so fast

To go a step further, Apple could embrace over-the-air antennas, whose usage is still on the rise as cable subscriptions sink. (According to Parks Associates, roughly 20 percent of U.S. homes with bro...

Report: Antenna Only Homes Increase to 15 Percent

While we’re certainly no longer in the days where people had a pair of rabbit ears on top of their TV sets, the use of antennas are making a little bit of a comeback according to a recent report from...

Nest selling cheaper Internet-connected thermostat to reach masses

Tom Kerber of the research and consulting firm Parks Associates said the cheaper thermostat could persuade more shoppers to try Nest. Just 11 percent of American households with broadband Internet hav...