Fast Company

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Comcast and Charter face a grim new reality: actual competition

“Across the nation, all sorts of internet service providers have gained two new competitors,” says Kristen Hanich, the research director for Parks Associates, referring to T-Mobile and Verizon. “They need to prepare for that accordingly.”

“That puts [T-Mobile] at about the 10th largest internet service provider in the United States, basically coming out of nothing a year or so ago,” Hanich says.

“There are a lot of people that only had one choice of internet service prov ...read more

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Hey, Apple, Just Make a TV Already

According to Parks Associates, Apple TV made up just 13% of streaming players owned by U.S. households with broadband internet as of last fall. By comparison, Roku and Amazon Fire TV players have U.S. market share of 38% and 33%, respectively.

Meanwhile, Apple is missing a bigger opportunity in smart TVs, which in recent years have started to subsume the streaming player business. Parks Associates notes that 58% of U.S. broadband households now own a smart TV, while only 45% ...read more

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Google is finally ready to fight Roku and Amazon in the streaming wars

Even if Google can get past those branding issues, success is far from guaranteed. Leichtman Research Group reported in June that 80% of U.S. households have at least one connected TV device already, and a survey last year by Parks Associates found that Roku and Fire TV are by far the most popular makers of streaming media players in the United States. Worldwide, Roku and Amazon have 43 million and 40 million active users, respectively. It’s a saturated market, which means Googl ...read more

Friday, August 23, 2019

Sharing your TV streaming passwords? Cable companies won’t stop you—yet

Neither of these methods work particularly well, at least for the kind of casual sharing that’s pervasive among friends and family members. A survey earlier this year by Parks Associates found that 18% of U.S. broadband homes were sharing passwords for video apps, up from 16% in 2017. That’s despite stricter limits from networks like Disney, which originally allowed five streams at a time in its apps but now allows just three, and no change in enforcement measures from stand-alo ...read more

Monday, July 29, 2019

Google Chromecast’s surprising origins—and uncertain future

New research out this week from Parks Associates found that Chromecast makes up just 11% of all streaming players installed in the United States, down from 21% three years ago. Meanwhile, Roku’s U.S. install base is up to 39%, and Amazon Fire TV has climbed to 30%.

Kristen Hanich, a senior analyst at Parks Associates, says that when the firm tested consumer perception of the four largest streaming platforms (Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku, and Apple TV), it found that Chromecast ...read more

Friday, July 20, 2018

Comcast is totally okay with you not having an Xfinity set-top box

“Pay-TV providers want to retain subscribers, so they want to make sure that you stay inside their ecosystem,” says Brett Sappington, a media analyst at Parks Associates. “If you don’t have a reason to leave their platform—and there’s data to support this—you’re much more likely to stay with that provider. You don’t have to change inputs or change apps on your TV. It’s all just right there.”

From the article "Comcast is totally okay with you not having an Xfinity set-top box ...read more

Thursday, June 07, 2018

Amazon’s new smart speaker is a TV streaming box, and vice versa

The Fire TV Cube will be an interesting test for full-blown streaming boxes, which have fallen out of favor as most consumers opt for cheaper streaming dongles that can fit behind a television. Last year, Parks Associates found that Amazon’s $40 Fire TV Stick made up 81% of all Fire TV devices owned in U.S. broadband homes. The NPD Group found that Roku’s average selling price was less than $50, suggesting that most customers also opt for the company’s cheaper streaming sticks. ...read more

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Sling TV has a secret weapon to win over cord-cutters–the humble TV antenna

Mitch Weinraub, AirTV’s director of product development, says a majority of Sling TV’s 2.2 million subscribers already use an antenna somewhere in their homes, and a recent Parks Associates study found that 20% of U.S. broadband homes used an antenna for TV last year. As more people supplement their streaming video services with free broadcast TV, AirTV could be Dish’s secret weapon. (Both AirTV and Sling TV are subsidiaries of Dish Network, which is trying to win over cord-cutt ...read more

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