Providing Market Intelligence for 40 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

TV antenna use surges amid coronavirus outbreak

That’s according to Parks Associates, which said that 25% of U.S. broadband households use an antenna to watch local broadcast TV channels, up from 15% in 2018. The firm said those figures could incre...

Watch Out “Trump TV”—Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze Is Coming To Sling TV

The deal is a coup for Beck, whose network has struggled to find carriage with some traditional cable systems. Sling, which launched in early 2015, has emerged as one of the most popular services for...

How Netflix is adapting as the streaming boom stalls

“There’s only so many consumers out there that are willing to pay full price,” said a research analyst with Parks Associates From the article, "How Netflix is adapting as the streaming boom stalls....

Apple earnings could offer clues on streaming performance

Consumers get a year of the streaming service for free with purchase of a new Apple device. Converting those users into paying customers might be tricky, said Steve Nason with Parks Associates....