Davis ThinkingHulu LLC announced a new paid subscription service for watching TV shows on computers, mobile devices and televisions, potentially creating a battle with cable-television operators that are planning similar services. Called Hulu Plus, the offering will initially be available only to invited subscribers for $9.99 a month. The paid service comes on top of the TV episodes that remain free to watch on Hulu.com.
On the face of it, $100 million is nothing to Procter & Gamble. The consumer-products giant spent $2.7 billion last year on traditional media and web-based banner ads, according to Kantar Media. So why should anyone care if Oprah Winfrey's fledgling cable network got a taste of a couple of Tide, Crest and Pampers-created pennies?
Oprah Winfrey, arguably the best-known personal brand in media, now OWN’s even more of the cultural pie. Yesterday, the queen of daytime announced she will be going prime time next year. OWN, her own cable channel, is backed by Harpo Productions and Discovery Communications, and fittingly “Oprah’s Next Chapter” will be her next on-air gig. This time, however, she’ll be out of the studio, trotting the globe with friends and celebrities to... well, anywhere she pleases. And the new show will only air two or three days a week, as Oprah forgoes her rigorous daily programming routine.
Google Inc., putting more pressure on cable and phone companies, said it plans to begin offering ultrafast Internet services to consumers in a small number of U.S. cities. Under the plan, the Internet search giant will take its biggest step into supplying Web connections rather than the services that run atop them. Google said it will build and test a few fiber-optic networks that reach homes, aiming to serve 50,000 to 500,000 people. Google executives said the move was designed to accelerate the deployment of faster networks and show off the sort of services that high-speed connections can enable, such as rapid video downloads.
It used to be that a basic $25-a-month phone bill was your main telecommunications expense. But by 2004, the average American spent $770.95 annually on services like cable television, Internet connectivity and video games, according to data from the Census Bureau. By 2008, that number rose to $903, outstripping inflation. By the end of this year, it is expected to have grown to $997.07. Add another $1,000 or more for cellphone service and the average family is spending as much on entertainment over devices as they are on dining out or buying gasoline.
CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co. are considering participating in Apple Inc.'s plan to offer television subscriptions over the Internet, according to people familiar with the matter, as Apple prepares a potential new competitor to cable and satellite TV.
The nation's biggest broadcast-TV networks are fighting with local TV stations for a share of viewers' monthly cable bills, with each side claiming the cash is crucial to its survival. CBS Corp., Fox owner News Corp. and ABC owner Walt Disney Co. are asking independently owned TV stations that carry their programming for a cut of the payments the stations get from cable, satellite and telecommunications companies, according to people familiar with the discussions. In some cases, networks want half or more of the compensation their affiliated stations receive.
Ms. Winfrey, the billionaire queen of daytime television, is planning to announce on Friday that she will step down from her daily pulpit, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” in two years in order to concentrate on the forthcoming cable channel that will bear her name. “The sun will set on the Oprah show as its 25th season draws to a close on Sept. 9, 2011,” Tim Bennett, the president of Ms. Winfrey’s production company, Harpo, said in a letter to her 214 local TV stations on Thursday evening. She will appear on her cable channel, called OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network, in some form. But “The Oprah Winfrey Show” will no longer be.
Today, nearly 3 million users access Netflix's instant streaming service, watching an estimated 5 million movies and TV shows every week on their PCs or living room sets. They get it through Roku's player, which was successfully launched in May 2008. They get it through their Xbox 360s—Microsoft added Netflix to its Xbox Live service last fall. They get it through LG and Samsung Blu-ray players. They get it through their TiVos and new flatscreen TVs. By the end of 2009, nearly 10 million Netflix-equipped gadgets will be hanging on walls and sitting in entertainment centers. And Hastings says this is just the beginning: "It's possible that within a few years, nearly all Internet-connected consumer electronics devices will include Netflix."
I want to love my cable company – honestly, I do. They bring me things I love and depend upon. I love TV. I really, really love the internet. (The phone? Well, I love that, too – but unfortunately for the cable company, it’s my iPhone I adore.)
The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Monday to let stand a ruling that Cablevision can go forward with its virtual DVR product. Let me explain what this is and what it means for marketers.
For years local broadcast stations looked forward to digital TV as a potential business panacea. The technology would allow them to create so-called subchannels alongside their existing ones that would beam niche programming—from local weather to high school football games—over the air to viewers' sets, theoretically attracting more advertising and helping the local guys compete with cable.
Even with the economy in recession, even with television distribution models in upheaval, even with the advertising business suffering, business was surprisingly good at the Cable Show ’09. Beating predictions of a serious attendance drop, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s annual show in Washington last week reflected the industry’s relative health. Its leaders advocated investing in the business and offering new products and services at a time when many other businesses are retrenching.
Time Warner's TV Everywhere initiative and others like it all seek to answer the same question: Will consumers pay for cable content online? If you ask George Bodenheimer, the answer is already yes.
Consumers are cooling to cable. And they're not very satisfied with satellite TV. In fact, according to consumer research firm GfK Roper Consulting, about 40% of those surveyed during mid-2008 and early 2009 said they'd be willing to do without cable or satellite TV.
When Corey Wynsma's wife got laid off a few months ago from her graphic design job, the couple did an inventory of their household budget. Cable TV seemed like an obvious luxury. So the couple, who live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, canceled their cable service and found another way to keep up with their favorite shows: on the Internet.
The notion that Google could do for TV what it's done for the web is starting to gain some traction. Two months after signing up NBC Universal's cable networks as its first clients, Google TV Ads has a new network partner, Hallmark Channel.
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