Leading U.S. pay-TV providers lost roughly 795,000 net video subscribers last year vs. a loss of about 445,000 subscribers in 2015, said a Thursday Leichtman Research Group report. The top providers, representing 95 percent of the market, had 93.6 million subscribers, said Leichtman, with the top six cable companies with 48.6 million, satellite TV services about 33.5 million and telcos about 10.1 million. The leading internet-delivered pay-TV services have about 1.4 million subscribers, it said.
Despite blizzard warnings posted for most of the New York metropolitan area, Samsung Electronics America late Monday was forging ahead with its 2017 Home Entertainment launch event in Manhattan scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday, Samsung representatives said. Samsung's newly introduced 2017 line of QLED TVs is expected to figure prominently at the event. National Weather Service forecasters told New Yorkers to expect up to two feet of snow Tuesday, accompanied by wind gusts exceeding 50 mph and whiteout conditions. Authorities took the rare measure Monday morning of closing New York City schools Tuesday, 24 hours in advance. because of the storm's expected severity.
Pandora is launching its $10-per-month Premium on-demand service Wednesday on mobile devices and for cars, it announced. Premium will be available first on iOS and Android smartphones, Google Chromecast, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and in vehicles from General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda and Subaru. It will be available on other platforms, including desktop and “popular connected devices,” in coming months, Pandora said. Juggling three tiers, the company is offering existing subscribers to Pandora Plus -- its $4.99 mid-tier subscription that went live last year -- six months of Premium free. On Friday, an analyst noted Pandora shifted focus from the $5-per-month Plus tier after adding 200,000-250,000 subscribers in Q4 and another 90,000 in January (see 1703100044). Sonos wasn't listed as a launch platform partner for Pandora Premium, and the companies didn't comment Monday.
Amazon’s acknowledgment of a glitch with the Alexa voice assistant Tuesday night into Wednesday was far less detailed than social media comments chronicling the snafu. We first noticed the brownout when we summoned Alexa for the weather forecast; while our Echo lit up to indicate it was listening, Alexa didn’t respond to requests for the weather, a joke or the news. Far more connected Alexa users lost control of lights and more, we found from social media posts. Twitter user Kunai Bajaj wondered if the Alexa outage was related to the Amazon Web Services disruption last week. Facebook user Howie Cooperstein blamed a failed software update for “connected but useless” Alexa Echo devices. A friend weighed in saying his Echo speaker wouldn’t control the lights but did play music. Twitter user AndrewChoy thought the outage might be a political statement and said: “Ok @amazon, supporting #adaywithoutwomen is noble but taking Alexa offline is a bit much." Many Alexa users took the hitch in stride. Said Twitter user Andrew Lee: “Fine, I'll turn off the lights myself." In response to our questions on what happened, what caused the flameout and how many devices were affected, an Amazon spokeswoman only emailed us: "Yesterday evening we had an issue that impacted some Alexa customers’ ability to interact with the service. The Alexa service is now operating normally.”
Last year's worldwide wearable shipments rose 25 percent to 102.4 million, IDC reported Thursday. Fitbit had one of its steepest declines, despite holding the top spot for the fourth quarter and the year, said IDC. Apple posted its best quarter for wearables. Smart wearables are evolving, with ability to connect to a cellular network enabling unique applications and communications capabilities and “freeing the device from the smartphone” and creating a stand-alone experience, said analyst Ramon Llamas.
Worldwide smartphone shipment growth will rebound in 2017 to 4.2 percent, and 4.4 percent in 2018, after the category’s lowest annual growth rate of 2.5 percent last year, IDC forecast. Expect unit smartphone shipments of 1.53 billion in 2017, growing to 1.77 billion in 2021, it said. Android, forecast to ship 1.3 billion smartphones this year, will eventually see a decline, but the researcher doesn’t see a point during the forecast period where shipments will fall, amid introduction of features including augmented and virtual reality. Despite concerns over longer life cycles affecting demand, “so far we are not seeing any trend,” said analyst Ryan Reith. Non-phablet smartphone shipments declined 9.4 percent, analyst Anthony Scarsella told us.
Gracenote standardizing the ID structure of its music, sports and video databases is a big step toward the company’s goal of physically linking the trio to create a database, Simon Adams, general manager-video, told us. Gracenote, which Nielsen bought in December for $560 million (see 1612200022), set out three years ago to become a single-source provider of entertainment across its three core verticals, said a spokeswoman. “We’re in the first phase of single-point access of this phase with the persistent IDs.”
Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel maintained a “buy” rating for Universal Electronics in a research note to investors Friday after Q4 earnings results that were above forecasts. Customer delays that plagued Universal in Q4 appear to have eased, said Frankel, putting the company in the early stage of a multiyear product cycle for its core subscription broadcast customers that are rolling out next-generation set-top boxes paired with advanced remote controls. Shares closed 5 percent higher Friday at $72.65.
TiVo shares closed 10 percent higher Thursday at $21 after better-than-expected Q4 results and continued expectations of $100 million in cost synergies from Rovi’s $1.1 billion buy of TiVo in September (see 1609080007). TiVo CEO Tom Carson said Rovi's TiVo buy (after which Rovi adopted the TiVo name) is “proceeding as planned” and the combined companies expect 2017 revenue of more than $800 million.
Consumer electronics companies tapped the Grammy Awards this week in efforts to steer music fans into audio gear purchases. A Sony brand campaign that launched this week, Lost in Music, combines music and virtual reality, and will feature a VR music video for the Chainsmokers’ single, "Paris," that’s being produced exclusively for PlayStationVR, Sony said in a Tuesday announcement. The Chainsmokers won a Grammy for best dance recording Sunday.