I’m pleased to present the 459th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Comcast’s new Xfinity Flex is a little bit of a lot of things  - access to certain SVOD, AVOD and live TV services, integration of certain connected home devices, a VOD library of 10K titles though unlikely anything very recent or super-popular, access to certain music services, though not market leaders Spotify or Apple Music and a grid guide. There’s also a connected TV device and voice remote powered by X1’s software.

Of course there are lots of alternatives for consumers to easily accomplish all of the above by themselves, challenging the value of a service like Flex. But to complicated things further, Comcast hopes to use Flex - which is targeted to broadband-only  subscribers in Comcast’s footprint - to create upsell opportunities to Comcast’s multichannel video service and build value/reduce churn among broadband-only’s.

And that’s why, in an era when streaming sticks are being bought by millions of mainstream consumers for $30 or less, Comcast’s decision to charge Flex subscribers $5 per month makes the whole undertaking a head-scratcher.

In today’s podcast Colin and I dig into Flex and the various reasons it is unlikely to have much impact for Comcast. I’ve been writing for a while that Comcast does not seem to have an aggressive response to the massive changes sweeping through the industry. Today’s hyper-competitive, “land grab” video services market favors bold moves and Flex seems too tepid to stand out.

Listen in to learn more!

 
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