I'm pleased to present the 283rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Yesterday Comcast reported its Q2 ’15 results, including the best Q2 video subscriber numbers in 9 years. Comcast lost just 69K subscribers, vs. 144K in Q2 ’14. Comcast’s performance is in contrast to Verizon’s dismal Q2 video subscriber results. I’m eager to see what trend emerges from the whole pay-TV universe in Q2, given Netflix’s breakout Q2 U.S. subscriber performance and whether cord-nevering is accelerating.

Comcast gave a lot of the credit for its Q2 subscriber improvement to its X1 set-top box. Comcast said it is now shipping 30K X1 boxes per day and expects to ship 6 million in 2015.  Comcast noted that X1 improves churn, viewing time, DVR penetration and other metrics.

As VideoNuze readers know, I’ve been an X1 subscriber for 3 years now, and continue to be very impressed with its modern web-like experience. But as I discuss on the podcast, the big missing piece in X1 remains access to OTT apps like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others. In fact, the app section of X1 is devoid of video options, instead offering utilities like horoscopes, weather, traffic, stocks, photos, Pandora and Facebook (note Comcast recently announced a new gaming service for X1 with EA).

This lack of OTT access stands in stark contrast to TiVo (which we use for our primary TV), where all major OTT apps are integrated, and searching for a TV show returns results across all services. Comcast has a huge opportunity to please its X1 subscribers with OTT integrations. Last Fall I noted the timing seemed right for a Comcast-Netflix partnership and it’s mind-boggling to me there’s been no visible progress on OTT in 3 years since X1’s launch.

Listen in to learn more!

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