Narrative: Disrupting TV
Each narrative page (like this) has a page describing and evaluating the narrative, followed by all the posts on the site tagged with that narrative. Scroll down beyond the introduction to see the posts.
Amazon to Start Selling TVs With Integrated Fire TV OS This Year – Variety (Jan 3, 2017)
Amazon’s Fire TV devices have sold pretty well, but as with Alexa the company is clearly willing to license its technology to appear in third party devices too, in this case TVs sold under three brands owned by a single Chinese company, Tongfang. These aren’t the biggest brands in the market, but this is a starting point, and could lead to more meaningful partnerships in future. However, with Roku also doing well (and perhaps perceived as less of a threat for some of these companies), it’s a competitive space. Amazon, though, can also offer prime placement (no pun intended) on Amazon.com, something Roku can’t.
via Amazon to Start Selling TVs With Integrated Fire TV OS This Year | Variety
Roku: 13 Million Monthly Users, 13 Percent Smart TV Market Share – Variety (Jan 3, 2017)
Roku has done well with standalone players in the past, but is also doing increasingly well in the smart TV space as a platform vendor. It claims 13% share of smart TV platforms in the US, and its TCL partnership seems to be really paying off. With Amazon also entering the market, this is going to be an increasingly competitive space, but it seems more and more TV vendors (with the notable exception of Samsung) are willing to consider outsourcing rather than owning the platform and interface.
via Roku: 13 Million Monthly Users, 13 Percent Smart TV Market Share | Variety
Dish unveils a 4K Android TV streaming box with Netflix, Sling TV, and local channels – The Verge (Jan 3, 2017)
Though cord-cutting is often seen as “breaking the bundle”, in reality many cord cutters end up creating their own stitched-together bundles of multiple streaming services, and in many cases an antenna for over the air content is part of the mix too. DISH’s Sling recognizes that, and this box combines the Sling service, Netflix, YouTube, and OTA channels into a single box running Android TV. That makes it a fairly compelling box – arguably more so than most of the other Android TV boxes out there.
via Dish unveils a 4K Android TV streaming box with Netflix, Sling TV, and local channels – The Verge
YouTube Needs to Become a TV Star – Bloomberg Gadfly (Dec 29, 2016)
This analysis does a great job of breaking down a couple of specific challenges relating to ad revenue from YouTube – its relatively low revenue per user, and the need to break into traditional television to tap into a bigger video advertising bucket. YouTube has evolved – notably introducing a subscription model – since Wojcicki took over, but arguably not enough. And YouTube is critical for Google growing its overall ad revenue.
via YouTube Needs to Become a TV Star – Bloomberg Gadfly
Amazon Prime Video’s Global Launch Looks Soft, But It’s a Game-changer | Variety (Dec 27, 2016)
It’s clear that Amazon has felt the need to compete with Netflix’s global launch almost a year ago, but its own global offering is sparse and inconsistent. The lack of localization (or in some cases any local offering at all) is one of the most overlooked issues in consumer tech – so many services we take for granted in the US simply don’t exist or are pale imitations of themselves in other markets. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix have all done well to make their offerings at least somewhat global, but Amazon is still very early in this game.
via Amazon Prime Video’s Global Launch Looks Soft, But It’s a Game-changer | Variety