SAP will downsize with the removal of 2,200 jobs. The second round of eliminations under the direction of CEO Bill McDermott marks about 3% of its workforce. SAP is continuing to pivot toward cloud computing rather than traditional licensing, and that means a move toward less profitable software delivered more quickly with payments stretched over time
Seeking Alpha
An early read on Sling TV indicates demand is quite strong. Dish Network's (NASDAQ
ISH) direct over-the-top subscription service has attracted 100,000 subscribers in just over a month since being introduced. Sling TV is priced by Dish at $20 per month. An interesting twist to the story is the opt-out wildcard Disney (NYSE IS) is believed to hold for ESPN
Seeking Alpha.
US IPTV operators add 1.16 million subs in 2014
By Thomas Campbell March 6th, 2015
IPTV operators in the US added 1.16 million new subscribers in 2014, according to the latest report from Strategy Analytics.
The report, ‘Digital Television Operator Performance Benchmarking: North America,’ says Verizon added 387,000 new subs and AT&T, which sold its Connecticut assets to Frontier, added 478,000.
Meanwhile, the top pay-TV operators in the United States added 101,000 new subscribers during the fourth quarter to end a roller coaster year, reversing the declining trend in pay-TV subscribers in North America, seen during the second and third quarters.
The 19 tracked operators in the US added 101,000 subscribers while operators in Canada added 5,000. In the US, the increase in the fourth quarter brought the total tracked subscribers to 96.1 million, representing more than 95% of the total US market. Digital subscriber growth has continued throughout 2014, ending the year at nearly 95 million.
“2014 started and finished strong, with growth in Pay TV subscribers in both the first and fourth quarters,” explains Jason Blackwell, Director of Service Provider Strategies. “The middle of the year was a bit rough, with subscriber losses in the second and third quarters. Overall, the year was flat, with our tracked operators losing only 4,000 subscribers.”
http://www.iptv-news.com/2015/03/us-iptv-oper...s-in-2014/
Comment: Nick Thomas on the future of the BBC
By Thomas Campbell March 4th, 2015
Following yesterday’s speech by BBC director general Tony Hall, Ovum analyst and TV Connect (28 – 30 April 2015 ExCel, London) chair Nick Thomas considers some of the issues raised by Hall, and the future of the world’s leading public broadcaster.
I thought Tony Hall’s speech was a good, coherent statement of intent about the BBC’s changing role.
He acknowledged the need for a debate, but asked people to be transparent about their motivations and honest about the consequences. That’s absolutely right. A lot the debate in the UK regarding the BBC is caught up with vested interests: people against the BBC for their own reasons.
On the other hand, perhaps there can also be a sense in other quarters that the BBC is beyond criticism…
Don’t take it personal
Especially interesting though was Hall’s vision for a more personalised BBC, the idea that people literally sign up and have an interactive, or dynamic, relationship where the BBC delivers and recommends content based on what the individual viewer consumes.
http://www.iptv-news.com/2015/03/comment-nick...f-the-bbc/
The notion of recommendation and personalised recommendation is a very hot topic. There’s a kind of narrative emerging that content recommendation is the saviour of everything. In this hybridized, on-demand and linear universe where content is increasingly expensive to produce, the big fear among TV executives is that people won’t be able to find the content they make!
I’m not massively convinced by this.I think that people are very good at recommending and sharing content themselves using existing social media platforms.
It’s not going to happen on iPlayer, it’s going to happen on Twitter and Facebook.
The question is: what will the BBC’s role is in that ecosystem ultimately be?
I’m not sure that recommendation is the silver bullet.
The future of the TV License
Hall has a vision where the income for the BBC continues around the same level or even increases. And he suggests it’s almost inconceivable that it could be anything other than that.
Indeed, the BBC is more popular than people realise. It’s not quite up there with the NHS, but it’s not far off either. I don’t think that any political party has the appetite to completely dismantle it.
As such, the license fee will be updated, and I expect we will continue to see households paying some kind of levy.
Some people in the UK seem to think this is a kind of unique situation but actually there’s a lot of countries, certainly in Europe, that pay a license fee, often more than what’s paid in the UK, and usually for much less of a return.
In the UK we get the most popular TV channel, the most popular radio channels, the most popular website. Arguably, the BBC is effectively justifying its existence.
An olive branch to TV?
It was interesting that Hall resisted the temptation to have a go at Sky. Instead he presented a subtly different position, saying, look, the BBC is part of a very healthy UK TV market – Channel 4’s part of it, ITV’s part of it, but it’s all contingent on the BBC. I think that’s quite a compelling argument.
Meanwhile, one of the digs he did make was at Amazon; I suspect that, if you’re looking for an enemy or a rival to the BBC for the next ten years, it’s going to be Google and Amazon and Netflix, rather than Sky.
http://www.iptv-news.com/category/event-blog/...event-blog
Seeking Alpha
An early read on Sling TV indicates demand is quite strong. Dish Network's (NASDAQ
ISH) direct over-the-top subscription service has attracted 100,000 subscribers in just over a month since being introduced. Sling TV is priced by Dish at $20 per month. An interesting twist to the story is the opt-out wildcard Disney (NYSE IS) is believed to hold for ESPN Seeking Alpha.
US IPTV operators add 1.16 million subs in 2014
By Thomas Campbell March 6th, 2015
IPTV operators in the US added 1.16 million new subscribers in 2014, according to the latest report from Strategy Analytics.
The report, ‘Digital Television Operator Performance Benchmarking: North America,’ says Verizon added 387,000 new subs and AT&T, which sold its Connecticut assets to Frontier, added 478,000.
Meanwhile, the top pay-TV operators in the United States added 101,000 new subscribers during the fourth quarter to end a roller coaster year, reversing the declining trend in pay-TV subscribers in North America, seen during the second and third quarters.
The 19 tracked operators in the US added 101,000 subscribers while operators in Canada added 5,000. In the US, the increase in the fourth quarter brought the total tracked subscribers to 96.1 million, representing more than 95% of the total US market. Digital subscriber growth has continued throughout 2014, ending the year at nearly 95 million.
“2014 started and finished strong, with growth in Pay TV subscribers in both the first and fourth quarters,” explains Jason Blackwell, Director of Service Provider Strategies. “The middle of the year was a bit rough, with subscriber losses in the second and third quarters. Overall, the year was flat, with our tracked operators losing only 4,000 subscribers.”
http://www.iptv-news.com/2015/03/us-iptv-oper...s-in-2014/
Comment: Nick Thomas on the future of the BBC
By Thomas Campbell March 4th, 2015
Following yesterday’s speech by BBC director general Tony Hall, Ovum analyst and TV Connect (28 – 30 April 2015 ExCel, London) chair Nick Thomas considers some of the issues raised by Hall, and the future of the world’s leading public broadcaster.
I thought Tony Hall’s speech was a good, coherent statement of intent about the BBC’s changing role.
He acknowledged the need for a debate, but asked people to be transparent about their motivations and honest about the consequences. That’s absolutely right. A lot the debate in the UK regarding the BBC is caught up with vested interests: people against the BBC for their own reasons.
On the other hand, perhaps there can also be a sense in other quarters that the BBC is beyond criticism…
Don’t take it personal
Especially interesting though was Hall’s vision for a more personalised BBC, the idea that people literally sign up and have an interactive, or dynamic, relationship where the BBC delivers and recommends content based on what the individual viewer consumes.
http://www.iptv-news.com/2015/03/comment-nick...f-the-bbc/
The notion of recommendation and personalised recommendation is a very hot topic. There’s a kind of narrative emerging that content recommendation is the saviour of everything. In this hybridized, on-demand and linear universe where content is increasingly expensive to produce, the big fear among TV executives is that people won’t be able to find the content they make!
I’m not massively convinced by this.I think that people are very good at recommending and sharing content themselves using existing social media platforms.
It’s not going to happen on iPlayer, it’s going to happen on Twitter and Facebook.
The question is: what will the BBC’s role is in that ecosystem ultimately be?
I’m not sure that recommendation is the silver bullet.
The future of the TV License
Hall has a vision where the income for the BBC continues around the same level or even increases. And he suggests it’s almost inconceivable that it could be anything other than that.
Indeed, the BBC is more popular than people realise. It’s not quite up there with the NHS, but it’s not far off either. I don’t think that any political party has the appetite to completely dismantle it.
As such, the license fee will be updated, and I expect we will continue to see households paying some kind of levy.
Some people in the UK seem to think this is a kind of unique situation but actually there’s a lot of countries, certainly in Europe, that pay a license fee, often more than what’s paid in the UK, and usually for much less of a return.
In the UK we get the most popular TV channel, the most popular radio channels, the most popular website. Arguably, the BBC is effectively justifying its existence.
An olive branch to TV?
It was interesting that Hall resisted the temptation to have a go at Sky. Instead he presented a subtly different position, saying, look, the BBC is part of a very healthy UK TV market – Channel 4’s part of it, ITV’s part of it, but it’s all contingent on the BBC. I think that’s quite a compelling argument.
Meanwhile, one of the digs he did make was at Amazon; I suspect that, if you’re looking for an enemy or a rival to the BBC for the next ten years, it’s going to be Google and Amazon and Netflix, rather than Sky.
http://www.iptv-news.com/category/event-blog/...event-blog
