Blog articles from 07/2018

As connected devices gain more popularity in the home, companies are making moves to include the health of their consumers in their products. Heads of broadband households are beginning to see devices and services aimed towards taking care of themselves as they age, especially for when they reach retirement. With 60% of broadband households with a head 40 years or older, it’s critical for companies to provide services that make their older consumers feel better about living...

Stories about the pending purchase of 21 st Century Fox assets have dominated the media industry headlines over the past few weeks, with Comcast conceding to Disney’s $71 billion cash and stock offer for said assets. However, The United States’ Department of Justice recently ruled that they will approve a sale of these assets to Disney only if they agree to divest Fox’s 22 regional sports networks (RSNs) as part of the deal, due to monopoly concerns stemming from the...

Roku recently announced its new Roku TV Wireless Speakers. The speakers come as a stereo pair, are about 6-inches tall, and will only work with Roku TVs such as those made by TCL and Sharp. According to Roku, these speakers stream audio directly from the Roku TV, from either a streaming channel or via HDMI, without the lag commonly encountered with wireless speaker solutions. The speakers come bundled with the Roku Touch, a tabletop voice remote capable of controlling both Roku TVs and...

Esports is going to be aired on ESPN during prime time. Activision Blizzard, the publisher of Overwatch , has announced a deal with Disney that will see the Overwatch League playoffs be broadcast on ESPN, ESPN 3, Disney XD, and ABC. While other esports such as Heroes of the Storm have been broadcast on Disney XD and ESPN before, this agreement will see the first day of the Overwatch League finals broadcast at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN with later highlights and analysis of the finals airing on...

Amazon created the new template for services seeking to create a one-stop shop for streaming media content with their Amazon Channels offering in late 2015. What started with a simple platform for content aggregation has turned into a new strategy for players in the OTT space to create a more desirable—and affordable—content offering for their consumer with the ease of convergent billing. Several platforms/services have followed Amazon’s lead in aggregating content...

This week, Google parent company Alphabet’s life sciences outfit Verily announced a new joint venture with connected sleep diagnostics and treatment leader ResMed. The joint venture will develop software solutions to better identify sleep apnea and manage treatment. Awareness of sleep apnea is a substantial issue, with ResMed estimating 80% of U.S. consumers with the condition are undiagnosed and untreated. A new study  conducted by Parks Associates finds that 42% of...

OTT video has reshaped a successful industry. What must operators do to recapture their position as primary providers of video services? Change can be sneaky, particularly when it comes to consumer products and services. Some technologies enter the market with great fanfare only to quietly fade away a few years later. Others go from interesting novelties to behavior-changing products almost before consumers realize what has happened. The smartphone is a great example. Prior to...

Traditionally defined as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment,” sports have begun to take a new form in the growing world of digital media. People of all ages participate as an audience or as competitors in esports, competitions played completely online. With the ease of sites like Twitch and Youtube’s Gaming Center, watching these events is as easy as pressing a few buttons. In...