Today's Top Stories
1. VoD revenues to top $5.7B by 2016
2. Elemental lands transcoding deal for Comcast's Xfinity TVE play
3. Study: 3D viewing can be fatiguing, cause eye strain
4. Viewster deal with Panasonic brings its VoD service to connected TVs, Blu-ray players
5. U-verse rollout in Atlanta extends to more than 1M living units Editor's Corner: Verizon, AT&T gain subs as MSOs gird their loins and the cord cutting debate revives Also Noted: Spotlight On... New Verizon CEO McAdam will try to make wireline side 'entrepreneurial,' seek deals with unions
AT&T adds revenue, U-verse TV subs in 2Q; Netflix beats profits, misses revenues in 2Q and much more... Industry Voices: What Does Google+ Mean for Video? News From the Fierce Network:
1. Walmart puts Vudu on homepage to drive streaming business
2. Hulu Plus? Amazon Prime? HBO GO, DishOnline more worrisome to Netflix
3. Research: Small office spending on IP telephony to grow 83%
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Verizon, AT&T gain subs as MSOs gird their loins and the cord cutting debate revives
 Like reality TV, the cord-cutting debate just keeps going and going, and cable operator subscriber reports in the next couple of weeks are likely to add a little fuel to that fire.
This should be an ugly couple of weeks for cable operators as second-quarter subscriber numbers are reported. The quarter traditionally is one of the weaker periods for MSOs, and analyst outlooks are predictably grim. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett called the coming weeks "dismal," and he said he expects Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) and the rest of the MSOs to report losses of 300,000 or more for the quarter. But while the outlook for MSOs may be grim, things already are a little brighter for tecos. AT&T (NYSE:T) last week said it added about 202,000 U-verse TV subscribers this quarter, vaulting it past Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) and making it the eighth largest pay TV operator in the U.S. with 3.41 million subscribers. That amounts to 36 percent more subs than the company had a year ago. "U-verse has transformed our consumer business," AT&T CFO John Stephens said during a earnings call. The telco said its U-verse services now reach 29 million living units, with its target of 30 million reachable by the end of the year. Verizon (NYSE: VZ), meanwhile, said its FiOS TV service also attracted more subscribers. The company said it added 184,000 new FiOS TV subs, bringing it to the 3.8 million mark and making it No. 7 on the pay-TV list. And, even though the strong showing of telcos (and an expected 75,000 gain from DirecTV) should result in a net gain for the quarter, SNL Kagan last week threw a little water on the celebration. It predicted that, although pay-TV subscriber numbers would grow, the growth wouldn't keep up with household formation, and that OTT and substitution services like Hulu Plus, Netflix and the weight of on-demand services coming out would continue to eat away at the subscriber base. In fact, SNL Kagan said, it estimates 4.5 million households will look to online video instead of pay-TV for their entertainment by the end of 2011. Granted, that is only 4 percent of the market. But the research company paints a grimmer picture down the road, saying the number could grow to 8.6 million in 2013 and 12.1 million in 2015, nearly 10 percent of U.S. homes. "The evident subscriber plateau posted by multichannel service providers supports the moderate emergence of over-the-top substitution," SNL Kagan said. "The industry reversed the first-ever declines in the second and third quarters of 2010 to produce a small overall increase for the full year. The modest subscriber gain was neither convincing enough to dispatch the threat of cord cutting nor dismiss the impact of over-the-top substitution." On Monday, meanwhile, Leichtman Research Group released its own study on cord cutting; it contends the phenomenon is overblown. Even though, it reports, cable added 853,000 broadband subscribers (and telcos added 425,000 more) in the first quarter, only five percent of them are cord cutters... today.--Jim Read more about: AT&T, Subscriber Gains, cord cutting, editor's corner
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Today's Top News 1. VoD revenues to top $5.7B by 2016
Revenue from on-demand movies and TV programs globally will increase 58 percent to $5.7 billion in 2016, up from $3.6 billion in 2010, according to a new report.  | | Click here to view the charts from the On-demand TV Forecasts report. | The On-demand TV Forecasts report from Digital TV Research predicts revenues in the U.S. will top $1.83 billion, up from $1.43 billion in 2010. The figures don't include revenue from sports, adult programming or sales related to supplemental programmers like Netflix. Italy ($592 million), China ($509 million), the United Kingdom ($282 million) and Japan ($268 million), round out the top five countries by VoD revenue. By region, North America and Western Europe will still supply two-thirds of global on-demand revenues by 2016, though this is down from 80 percent in 2010. However, on-demand TV revenues will triple in the Asia-Pacific region over the same period to reach $1.2 billion. China will provide much of this growth. "Much emphasis has been placed on on-demand services making up the operators' shortfall in declining TV subscription revenues as homes converted to bundled packages and as greater competition leads to lower fees," report author Simon Murray said. "On-demand TV revenues will grow, but not fast enough to compensate for this decline." The study found that digital cable will generate $2.6 billion in 2016, almost double the $1.5 billion recorded in 2010. IPTV will overtake DTT in 2012 to become the third largest platform. DTT on-demand revenues are mainly confined to Western Europe, especially Italy. Murray said free on-demand offerings have attracted much attention as this catch-up provision acts as a customer retention tool. "There is little evidence to suggest that these free services actually encourage subscribers to pay for on-demand titles," Murray said. "In fact, it may be harder to convince households to pay for on-demand services if they have become accustomed to receiving free on-demand titles." A large pool of on-demand titles plus the rapid take-up of connected sets will accelerate the demise of linear channels, Murray said. "Although the viewers' interaction with connected TV services still needs a lot of improvement, the most vulnerable linear channels to the adverse affects of on-demand are those that rely heaviest on reruns," the study noted. "Channels providing the freshest content will remain the most popular," Murray said. For more:
- see this release Related articles:
APAC to drive IPTV growth through 2016, to 155M global subscribers
Research projects $147B pay-TV, broadband market in APAC by 2016 Read more about: IPTV, VOD, Trends & Metrics
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2. Elemental lands transcoding deal for Comcast's Xfinity TVE play
Video transcoder Elemental Technologies today announced it will be the power plant behind Comcast's (NASDAQ:CMCSA) Xfinity multi-screen strategy, transcoding and processing all of the video for the MSO's TV Everywhere play. The privately held company will handle the huge volume of video data processed to deliver content to multiple devices, including connected TVs and Apple iOS devices, like the iPad and iPhone, and more. "We are thrilled with this win," Elemental CEO Sam Blackman told FierceIPTV. "It was a collaborative effort with thePlatform folks and is paying off in a big win at Comcast HQ Philadelphia. It's enormously important for us... having the No. 1 service provider in the world select your technology is a vote of confidence that's unique." The integration combines the Elemental Server file-based video transcoding solution with thePlatform's mpx video management system for multi-screen video delivery. It allows Comcast to reduce its server farm's physical footprint by 70 percent, cuts the number of server racks and trims power consumption and cooling needs. "The video processing industry has been dominated by a couple of large companies for a long time," said Blackman. "Comcast and other MSOs and media companies want new technology from young, agile companies. This is a great opportunity to have validation that we can compete with anyone in the world." Blackman said Comcast currently is putting out 10,000 hours of programming a month on Xfinity and requires 18 adaptive bitrate multi-screen outputs for each piece of content. That's a number, he said, that will increase as Xfinity continues to expand. "One of the keys for Comcast is that Elemental is very scalable," he said. "Xfinity will continue increasing demand for programming, and Elemental lets them scale with that demand." The Comcast deployment is the first of many coming from the integrated video management system, Blackman said. In June, Elemental was tapped by digital media services company Avail-TVN to handle the video processing for its TV Everywhere roll out, AnyView. That fully-managed, multi-screen video service enables service providers to extend the traditional VOD and linear television experience to PCs, Macs, tablets and smart phones. International trials of AnyView currently are underway in several Caribbean markets and will move to commercial deployments in the third quarter of 2011. For more:
- see this release Related articles:
ThePlatform to bring cloud-based video management to Comcast TV service
Alcatel-Lucent, thePlatform partner on TV Everywhere solution
OTT Delivery: An online video revolution that's changing the industry
Avail-TVN plans summer trials for TV Everywhere service Read more about: Comcast, TV Everywhere, theplatform, Elemental Technologies
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3. Study: 3D viewing can be fatiguing, cause eye strain
4. Viewster deal with Panasonic brings its VoD service to connected TVs, Blu-ray players
Swiss video-on-demand provider Viewster struck a deal with Panasonic that brings its service to the Viera Connect portal of Panasonic's connected Viera Cast TVs, Blu-ray players and other devices in more than 90 countries. Viewster said the service is live in Beta immediately and can be viewed in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, France, Poland and the U.K. Viewster allows users to watch movies, series and clips on selected connected TVs, smartphones and tablets. The company said it will be available on laptops soon. "This is a hugely significant deal for Viewster", said Elizabeth Cowley, SVP of Strategic Partnerships at Viewster. "Panasonic marks our fifteenth deal with a device manufacturer, but the scale of Panasonic's operations makes this our largest footprint deal and helps us to strengthen Viewster's position in the dozen key markets we are committed to dominating. We can now say emphatically that no other VoD service is available on as many devices in as many countries and languages as Viewster." Viewster, a privately held company based in Zurich, supplies movies and TV series, delivering content to VOD platforms and connected devices globally to over-the-top platforms, IPTV operators and device manufacturers in Asia, Europe, Middle East and the U.S. For more:
- see this release Read more about: Video on Demand, Panasonic, Viewster
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5. U-verse rollout in Atlanta extends to more than 1M living units
AT&T (NYSE :T) said it has extended U-verse services past more than 1 million living units across the greater Atlanta area, as it continues its drive to deepen market penetration in markets in which it has been established. The telco first rolled out its high-speed data, TV and IP voice service in the city in 2007. "Today's expansion of AT&T U-verse reflects our commitment to make the investments necessary to bring consumers across metro Atlanta a new era of true video competition," said Sylvia Russell, state president of AT&T Georgia. "Local residents have asked for more choices in television service, and today we're delivering." AT&T's U-verse deployment now reaches 29 million living units across the U.S. The company last week said its U-verse TV service added more than 202,000 subscribers in the second quarter, bringing it to 3.4 million users, up from 2.5 million a year ago, and moving it past cable provider Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) in subscriber numbers. It's now the eighth-largest pay-TV operator in the U.S. For more:
- see this release Related articles:
AT&T adds 202,000 U-verse TV subs in Q2; revenue up, profits slip
AT&T offers U-verse on-screen helper app
AT&T hits 100K customers in South Florida Read more about: AT&T, Subscriber Data, U-verse TV
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Also Noted SPOTLIGHT ON... New Verizon CEO McAdam will try to make wireline side 'entrepreneurial,' seek deals with unions Verizon has executed its long-planned succession strategy, naming COO Lowell McAdam its chief executive. McAdam will oversee the company's wireline and wireless operations starting Aug. 1. Ivan Seidenberg will step down as CEO role but maintain his post as chairman of the telco... Read more More news from Fierce:
> AT&T reported higher revenues (but slimmer profits) and continued growth in its U-verse TV subscriber rate in the second quarter. Article > Netflix mailed in a solid second quarter in terms of subscriber growth and profit, but it missed the revenue mark Wall Street expected by enough to send the stock down 10 percent. Article > Verizon kept the FiOS fires burning in a solid second quarter, with the telco adding a net 184,000 TV and 189,000 Internet subscribers. FiOS video, data and voice services generated $2.03 billion in the three months ending June 30, up 20.7 percent year-over-year, and now account for 57 percent of consumer revenue, up from 48 percent a year ago. Verizon now counts 3.85 million video customers, holding its spot as the nation's seventh-biggest pay-TV provider. Article > Fans of the soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live have been waiting eagerly for news of how budding online video network Prospect Park plans to bring their cancelled shows to the Internet. Article > About 60 percent of American households with connected TVs use TV apps at least once a week, a new study contends. And, although Netflix and YouTube currently dominate the space, users will increasingly turn to apps from competitors as they gather traction in the market. Article > Much has been made about Netflix and its potential integration with social networking giant Facebook, but it's not something U.S. subscribers to either service are likely to see soon. Article > Some 100,000 DirecTV households will become part of Nielsen's local TV ratings after the media tracker reached a deal with Kantar Media to collect viewing data from DirecTV set-top boxes in a number of markets. Article > Momentum announced the addition of the Caller ID on TV feature to its product line with Interactive TV applications for Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators from the NCTC Independent show. Beginning in August, this service will be available to all Momentum partners that support two-way communications. Release > Portugal Telecom has increased its share of the country's pay TV market to 32 percent at the end of June, up from 26 percent a year earlier. Article > Dutch telco and pay TV operator KPN ended June with 1.3 million TV customers after adding 56,000 IPTV subscribers in the second quarter of 2011. Article > Walt Disney Co. offered to buy the rest of India's UTV Software Communications it doesn't own for as much as 20.1 billion rupees ($454 million), as the world's biggest media company seeks to expand in Bollywood. Disney, which owns 50.44 percent of UTV, offered to buy all remaining outstanding shares for no more than 1,000 rupees each, the Mumbai-based company said in a statement today. That's 11 percent higher than the closing price yesterday. Article And finally... The naked sunbathers who once crowded Germany's Baltic beaches and city parks are becoming an endangered species due to shifting demographics, the fall of the Berlin Wall, growing prosperity and widening girths. Article
What Does Google+ Mean for Video?
 | | Kostello | The biggest news in technology over the past few weeks has been the launch of Google+, the new social media site from the most widely-used search engine on the planet. Naturally, the question on everyone's mind is what sort of impact this new site will have on the world of social networking. From my perspective, Google+ is rapidly making inroads, particularly among technology folks. I don't use tools that aren't useful. I use Google+ every day. It's the first thing that has come around in a long time that I can say that about. Much of the appeal of Google+ is that it allows users to organize and categorize their lives. Its core component-- Circles--lets users sort contacts into different categories or circles, such as co-workers, industry experts, school chums, family and friends. Then, they can select them on the fly, as they create content. This ability to easily manage social groups and achieve some privacy is the big difference between Google+ and Facebook. Privacy concerns have plagued Facebook since its inception in 2004. Users have long complained that privacy settings were inadequate and kept changing. In addition, instructions on how to protect their accounts have been classified as confusing. While I find the Circles module both intuitive and attractive, for those less orderly, the process of categorizing--moving people around into different groups and the like--might be daunting and time consuming. For these individuals, the following questions loom: Will users go out of their way to customize the experience? Will they value the control that Circles gives them? Personally, I see great value in having the ability to manage and control the flow of information. With Google+, it's all signal and very little noise. This is a fundamental difference from Twitter where one follows a feed of content. With Google+, you can easily move people in and out of your circles. Many of my tech friends have moved over and embraced Google+, with more certain to follow in the days ahead. As Google+ continues to gain momentum and followers, I'm certain that Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder) will not sit still. Undoubtedly, he will integrate some of the features of Google+ into his own social networking site. So, how do these recent industry developments impact companies like VMIX and others in the online video delivery space? For starters, we're big believers in controlling where our content is delivered, and we're committed to our vision of delivering video content on any device to any person from a singular source. Presently, third-parties are unable to embed video content into any stream on Google+. But, we fully believe our API's will be implemented as part of a future release. As such, we have signed up to be part of the Google+ developer program called the Google+ Project. We've shown the ability to push content onto Facebook and expect to duplicate that with Google+. As for the next frontier as it relates to content (including video), I think much depends upon finding collaborative, intuitive filters as opposed to manual, keyword filters. We can all agree that there is plenty of social media content right now that is neither important nor interesting to us. Google's rich application set--combined with this new capability to understand what is valuable to the individual--will enable the company to take social networking services and make them less about pure entertainment and more about delivering useful, pertinent tools. Google is uniquely positioned to offer users personalized content that they find explicitly interesting. Its +1 button is a step in that direction as it allows users to publicly give something their stamp of approval. Consequently, as it relates to our business, it should result in more relevant video content and offer a much more intelligent feed of content based on the person's interests. Ultimately, through integrating your network via Gmail, calendar, Google docs and the like, Google+ is able to effectively bridge the gap between your social personal world and your social business world. Greg Kostello is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at VMIX, a provider of carrier-class online video publishing and communication solutions. With 25 million unique videos stored, and processing over one million new videos every month, VMIX offers a reliable, scalable white-label online video solution. Read more about: Vmix, industry voices
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