Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Wall Street isn’t sure Roku can lead cord cutters to the promised land

One of the secrets of Roku's success has been its expansion beyond its roots as a set top box maker (a term the company tries to avoid). To do this, Roku CEO Anthony Wood built a loyal customer following by moving the company away from only selling its own boxes, instead now licensing its software to TV makers, so they can ship screens with the company's streaming TV platform built-in. This is a much higher margin business than selling streaming hardware, and almost one-third of so-called smart TVs sold last year included Roku's software.

Roku has also developed and licensed streaming programming of its own, backed by advertising. The Roku Channel, available on all its platforms, was 2019's most popular ad-backed streaming channel, ahead of rivals Pluto TV and Crackle, according to market research firm Parks Associates. That's another business that yields higher margins than producing set top boxes.

From the article "Wall Street isn’t sure Roku can lead cord cutters to the promised land" by Aaron Pressman.

Previously In The News

Sling TV, Showtime, CBS Gaining Ground in OTT Share

Parks Associates has updated its top 10 list for subscription OTT video services, based on the number of subscribers, with Netflix holding the lead spot while Sling TV, Showtime and CBS moved up or en...

How Tubi TV Plans To Take On The AVOD Market

Tubi TV knows that not everyone wants to pay for premium content. “We see a strong desire among viewers who want free content, whether they’re viewers in search of value or subscription viewers who...

OTT Churn Rate At 19 Percent In The U.S.

The churn rate for OTT video services is 19 percent of U.S. broadband households, according to Parks Associates, meaning that roughly one in five households has canceled a streaming service in the las...

Can Google's Android TV Take on an Updated Apple TV?

Perhaps aware of Chromecast's limitations, Google unveiled Google TV's successor, Android TV, at its I/O conference last year. Compared to Google TV, Android TV is far less complex, with a standard in...