Pressure out to Blow it started in Canada...DD Slow moving U.S. pay-TV market bides time on 4K, waits for HDR to bake
November 3, 2015
After back-to-back product introductions at the beginning of this year by DirecTV (NYSE: T), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH), it looked as though pay-TV was going to embrace 4K/UltraHD in a pretty significant way in 2015.
But save for a few sporadic announcements about 4K-enabling satellite launches, and 4K set-tops to be released at some undetermined future date, there has been little if any actual movement in the pay-TV industry on the UltraHD topic since January. Most of the industry's focus today in pay-TV seems to be on streaming skinny bundles and cloud virtualization.
The flaccid state of the U.S. pay-TV market's 4K push stands in direct contrast to markets like Canada, where operators including Rogers Communications and Videotron have recently made aggressive 4K/UltraHD announcements. Rogers, for example, is going to leverage its ownership of sports assets, such as Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays, to launch a channel dedicated to both on-demand and live 4K programming.
Juxtapose this with DirecTV's 4K service, which is still only offering a limited number of archival Paramount films for download in the UltraHD format nearly a year after the satellite service introduced its 4K Genie set-top.
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November 3, 2015
After back-to-back product introductions at the beginning of this year by DirecTV (NYSE: T), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH), it looked as though pay-TV was going to embrace 4K/UltraHD in a pretty significant way in 2015.
But save for a few sporadic announcements about 4K-enabling satellite launches, and 4K set-tops to be released at some undetermined future date, there has been little if any actual movement in the pay-TV industry on the UltraHD topic since January. Most of the industry's focus today in pay-TV seems to be on streaming skinny bundles and cloud virtualization.
The flaccid state of the U.S. pay-TV market's 4K push stands in direct contrast to markets like Canada, where operators including Rogers Communications and Videotron have recently made aggressive 4K/UltraHD announcements. Rogers, for example, is going to leverage its ownership of sports assets, such as Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays, to launch a channel dedicated to both on-demand and live 4K programming.
Juxtapose this with DirecTV's 4K service, which is still only offering a limited number of archival Paramount films for download in the UltraHD format nearly a year after the satellite service introduced its 4K Genie set-top.
To read the rest of this feature, sign up below for FierceCable's free daily email newsletter now!
