The Boston Herald

The telecom industry is ready to try a multibillion-dollar acquisition again, a month after a Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal fell apart, this time with Charter Communications buying Time Warner Cable for roughly $55 billion.

“Charter came in second place to Comcast when TWC was first up for grabs, said Brett Sappington, a media analyst with Parks Associates. “It is not surprising to see Charter acting quickly to secure the deal.”

Until last month, Time Warner Cable — whi ...read more

But time is a tricky metric. Consider a damning Parks Associates estimate made in June that found a declining percentage in the number of Chromecast users using the device at least once a month. Google responded the following month at its I/O conference with a different data point suggesting the total number of minutes Chromecast is being used shot up 40% from last year.

Both points could be true: While the overall number of Chromecast buyers are using it less, the core user ...read more

It’s unclear what the future holds for Aereo’s 80 Boston employees. Carrier said broadcasters will now have to ask a lower court for an injunction to stop Aereo from operating, which could take months.

For consumers, the biggest impact will be what does not happen, said Brett Sappington, a media analyst with Parks Associates.

“We were on the cusp of what could have been a very stark change in broadcast TV,” Sappington said. “Had Aereo won, there might have been a very si ...read more

But Fire TV isn't just a device: Amazon wants to make buying stuff through the TV one-click simple. Fire TV comes preloaded with a customer's Amazon account information. It's offering Netflix and Hulu Plus, because it has to in order to gain traction, but the aim is to make Prime Instant Video the easiest-to-use SVOD service on the box -- again, to encourage Prime memberships. Here's why: In the U.S., Prime users spend around $1,500 per year on merchandise, compared with $500 fo ...read more

But some analysts see the device as Amazon’s opening salvo to bring the millions of items it sells into your living room.

“The point of this is for Amazon to sell you a lot more stuff,” said John Barrett, director of consumer analytics with Parks Associates. “It raises a lot of interesting possibilities.”

One possibility, Barrett said, is integration between a TV show or movie and Amazon’s retail business. If a character is wearing a shirt you like, Amazon eventually cou ...read more

Such a move would likely signal the end of local CBS programming, said John ?Barrett, a director of consumer analytics at Parks Associates.

“Depending on the way that this goes legally, there could be so much turned upside down,” said Barrett.

An Aereo spokeswoman declined to comment.

Still, Barrett and others do not see that happening.

“Do you really want to make it harder for people to watch your content?” Barrett asked.

From the article, "CBS chief Les Moo ...read more

Major League Baseball and the National Football League threatened to stop broadcasting games on free broadcast channels if upstart Internet TV company Aereo is not ordered to shut down, according to a brief filed with the Supreme Court.

Brett Sappington, a media analyst for Parks Associates, said the broadcasters are trying to show the potential scope of harm Aereo could cause.

“The broadcast TV industry is bringing everything they can against Aereo,” Sappington said.

...read more

Internet TV company Aereo continues to expand and is looking to Boston to beef up its engineering staff even as it faces lawsuits across the country from broadcast industry giants.

“They clearly are getting enough traction that the investors are saying let’s expand this nationwide,” said Brett Sappington, a media analyst and director of research at Parks Associates in Dallas.

From the article, "Aereo’s CEO signals more hiring in Hub" by Jordan Graham.