Posts for 'Time Warner Cable'

Summary:

What: Major cable operators Comcast and Time Warner intend to offer broadband access to cable programs for the first time, but they have provided few specifics to date, thereby creating a swirl of confusing interpretations. This post seeks to clarify their plans.

Important for whom: Cable networks, other content providers, cable operators, consumers

Potential benefits: Flexible access and first-time online availability of popular cable programs.

Background

Since the WSJ reported two weeks ago today that Comcast and Time Warner Cable plan to offer online access to cable TV programming to their subscribers, there has been a significant amount of confusion and misinterpretation about what these companies are actually planning to do. Absent official statements from either company, there has been an ongoing debate about whether cable operators, who want to defend their traditional model, were moving to choke off the largely open access to broadband video that users have grown accustomed to.

Things got more confusing this past Monday when AdAge ran an interview ("TV Everywhere -- As Long As You Pay For It") with Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner Inc. in which he elaborated on a company initiative dubbed "TV Everywhere" that major cable network owners such as Time Warner Inc. Viacom, NBCU, Discovery and others are said to be collaborating on. Bewkes outlined a broad online vision including the idea that cable programming could also be available on sites like Hulu, MySpace, Yahoo and YouTube as well, provided that users were paying a fee to some underlying service provider (cable/satellite/telco).

The NYTimes' technology reporter Saul Hansell then picked up on the interview and wrote a piece on the paper's widely-read "Bits" blog entitled "Time Warner Goes Over the Top," which provocatively began, "Just as soon as Time Warner has divested itself from the cable business, Jeff Bewkes, its chief executive, is preparing to stab the cable industry in the back. That's what I read in an interview with Mr. Bewkes in Advertising Age..."

Saul went on to describe his interpretation of one particular Bewkes comment as implying that Time Warner Inc. would offer its networks directly to consumers (or "over the top" of cable operators), thereby setting off a domino effect in which others' networks did the same, all of which would ultimately lead to the destruction of the cable industry business model.

The attention all of this received, particularly in the blogosphere, prompted a fair number of people to contact me and ask what's really going on here.

Time Warner's Plans

Yesterday I spoke with Keith Cocozza, TWI's spokesman, who said that Bewkes's comments do represent both TWI and TWC. Their mutual vision is to have cable programming offered not just at TWC's RoadRunner portal, but also at various third-party aggregators (Hulu, etc.) so long as they subscribe to any multichannel video service (whether from TWC, Verizon, DirectTV, etc.). They do envision offering a streaming-only service for those that don't want the traditional cable subscription, but it would only be available in their geographical footprint. All of that means that there's in fact no over-the-top threat involved here at all. TWI and TWC are "agnostic" about third-party aggregator access to the cable programs, because they recognize that people want to go to whatever sites make them most comfortable. And they do not plan to charge subscribers extra for online access.

From a consumer standpoint, all of this is quite enlightened. But from an operational standpoint, it feels incredibly complex. For example, I asked Keith about how a remote user, seeking to watch programs at a third party aggregator's site like Hulu, would be authenticated as an actual customer of a video service provider? While acknowledging it's too early to have all the answers, he said a test TWC has conducted in Wisconsin with HBO has shown this not to be a big technical problem. I don't agree. It's hard enough for companies to do a bilateral account integration (e.g. tying a user's Amazon account to a user's TiVo account); the idea of doing multilateral account integration (the numerous combinations of potential aggregators and service providers) is fraught with complexity and seems highly daunting.

Then there are financial issues to address. With no incremental subscriber payments, online program delivery needs to be sustained through ads alone. This would be quite workable if it were just cable operators and networks involved (they could split the ad avails proportionately as they've traditionally done with linear delivery), but by allowing third-party aggregators in too, a third mouth now needs to be fed. That will trigger a whole new negotiating dynamic, as each aggregator lobbies for a different share. And it's questionable whether there's even enough ad revenue for three parties to begin with, though Keith believes there is.

Comcast's Plans

Conversely, Kate Noel, Comcast's spokeswoman, told me yesterday that while it's still early to say anything definitive about Comcast's plans for distribution through third-party aggregators, their first priority is distribution of cable programs on their own sites (e.g. Fancast, Comcast.net) and the networks' own sites. Comcast seems to have more of a "walk, before you run" approach. It recognizes that protecting subscribers' privacy in any account integration is crucial so it plans to proceed carefully. I tried to pin Kate down on whether Comcast intends to charge for online access. Again she felt it was too early to be definitive, but it sounds like they're leaning toward a no-charge model as well. The timeline is to begin rolling out access in the 2nd half of '09.

Clearly there are a lot of moving pieces involved with these companies' plans. In general Time Warner has a more aggressive, yet I believe far less pragmatic, plan. They're trying to get all the way to the end zone right away, when just advancing the ball further downfield would be real progress for today's broadband users seeking improved access to premium content. Time Warner's "TV Everywhere" seems like a great vision, but it would take years to fully implement. Comcast's plan is probably achievable in a year or less. Either way, major cable operators finally seem to have the ball rolling toward broadband distribution of cable programming. As I pointed out last week, this can only be viewed as a positive.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

(btw, if you want to learn more about all this, come to the Broadband Video Leadership Evening on March 17th in NYC, where we'll dig deeply into these issues with our top-notch panel)

This past Tuesday I highlighted some of Nielsen's recent data which showed, among other things, significant online and mobile video usage by younger age groups. In that post I noted that marketers need to pay close attention to these trends to ensure their products and services meet these users' needs and expectations.

New research from The Diffusion Group (a long-time VideoNuze partner) provides a window into how users think about accessing video across multiple screens, and who the providers might be. TDG has recently completed a survey of 2,000 adults (18 or above) which tested interest in two-screen and three-screen services along with content and features. TDG has graciously provided a sample of the slides for complimentary download by VideoNuze. You can download the slides here.

TDG defined a three-screen service as "a single video service which feeds all your household TVs, PCs and mobile devices, for a single monthly fee, from a single service provider, and with relatively equal content, variety and quality of service for all three devices."

TDG found that almost 25% of those surveyed responded positively to such a package. Whereas video marketers would have traditionally considered heavy TV viewership (25 hours/week and above) to be the most important criterion for driving more video services adoption, these so-called "three-screen intenders" don't exhibit heavier TV viewership than non-intenders (though they're slightly higher in moderate viewership, 11-25 hours/week).

Rather, the behavior that distinguishes three-screen intenders is how much online viewing they're doing. The intenders are far higher consumers of online video in general, and of online TV programs in particular. In other words, their behaviors are already self-selecting them as the targets for a three-screen service offering. That of course makes it much easier for marketers to find and target them.

All of this certainly supports Comcast's and Time Warner Cable's recently revealed plans to offer their video subscribers online access to programs. Better news still for these companies is that TDG found that cable operators were the top choice by intenders as the preferred three-screen provider. Cable was chosen by 31.7% of intenders, almost double the amount that selected satellite operators. Translation: there is a sizable group of consumers interested in three-screen services and cable appears to be in the prime position to capitalize on this.

Of course, the next question then is whether cable operators should charge for these services or imitate Netflix's example with Watch Instantly by including them as a value add to existing digital services. In my opinion, at least some of the online viewing capability should be included for no extra charge. That would go a long way toward establishing loyalty, and position cable for even greater competitive gains.

Click here to download the complimentary slides.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

An article in Friday's WSJ "Cable Firms Look to Offer TV Programs Online" outlined a plan under which Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the nation's 2 largest cable operators, would give just their subscribers online access to cable networks' programming.

A Comcast spokesperson contacted me later Friday morning to explain that the plan, dubbed "OnDemand Online" is indeed in the works, though a release timeline is not yet set. The move is part of the company's "Project Infinity" a wide-ranging on-demand programming vision that was unveiled at CES '08, but oddly has not been messaged much since. Meanwhile, thePlatform, Comcast's broadband video management/publishing subsidiary also called me on Friday to confirm that - unsurprisingly - it would be powering the OnDemand Online initiative (thePlatform's CEO Ian Blaine explains more in this post).

The idea of cable operators setting up online walled gardens for their subscribers alone was first signaled by Peter Stern, Time Warner's EVP/Chief Strategy Officer on the panel I moderated at VideoNuze's Broadband Leadership Breakfast last November. As I wrote subsequently in "The Cable Industry Closes Ranks" my takeaway from his and other cable executives' recent comments was that the industry was poised to collaborate in order to defend cable's traditional - and highly profitable - business model. Under that model, cable operators currently pay somewhere between $20-25 billion per year in monthly "affiliate fees" to programmers whose networks are then packaged by operators into various consumer subscription tiers.

It should come as a surprise to nobody that both cable networks and operators are mightily incented to defend their model against the incursions of free "over the top" distribution alternatives. Indeed what's surprising to me is why it has taken the industry so long to act forcefully when the stakes are so high and the market's moving so fast? I mean cable operators themselves are the largest broadband Internet access providers in the country, and they have watched for years as their networks have been engorged by surging online viewing, courtesy of YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and others. While they've made some tepid moves to push programming online (though to be fair Comcast's Fancast portal has evolved quite a bit recently), overall their broadband video distribution activities have been underwhelming, evidence of broadband distribution's lower priority status vis-a-vis TV-based video-on-demand.

Meanwhile Friday's article triggered plenty of hackles from the blogosphere that those evil cable operators were up to their old monopolistic tricks, this time moving to control the broadband delivery market and choke off open access to premium video. While it's indeed tempting to see these plans that way, I think that would be the wrong conclusion.

Rather, I look at the Comcast/TWC moves as both welcome and likely to spur more, not less, consumer access to broadband-delivered programming. That's because, if the cable networks are smart in their negotiations, they will gain from operators the approval to push more of their programs onto both their own web sites, and even to distribute some through others' sites. With net neutrality agitators hopeful in the wake of Barack Obama's election, Comcast and TWC need to tread carefully in these negotiations. Yet another part of the model I foresee is archived programs, which have been locked up in vaults due to programmers' concerns over operator reprisals if they leaked out online, becoming much more openly accessible.

The Comcast/TWC hecklers need to remember one simple fact: to make quality programming requires solid business models. And in this economic climate, solid business models are far and few between. Despite having lost a total of over 500,000 video subscribers during the last 6 consecutive quarters, Comcast still owns one of those few sold models. And don't forget it is now investing to increase its broadband speeds, pledging 30 million, or 65% of its homes, will have 50 Mbps access by the end of '09 (a rollout which incidentally is all privately financed, without a dime of federal bailout money or other assistance).

Someday, when broadband video business models mature (as indeed they ultimately will), there will be lots of cable and other programming available for free online. For now though, getting Comcast and TWC to finally pursue an aggressive broadband distribution path is a welcome evolutionary step in unlocking this exciting new medium's ultimate potential.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

(Note: we'll be diving deep into this topic, and others, at VideoNuze's Broadband Video Leadership Evening on March 17th in NYC. More information and registration is here.)

My opening question to frame the discussion centered on broadband's eventual impact on the cable business model: does it ultimately upend the traditional affiliate fee-driven approach by enabling a raft of "over-the-top" competitors (e.g. Hulu, Netflix, Apple, YouTube, etc.) OR does it complement the model by creating new value and choice? As I said in my initial remarks, I believe that how this question is ultimately resolved will be the key determinant of success for many of the companies involved in today's broadband ecosystem and video industry.

I posed the question first to Peter Stern, who's in the middle of the action as Chief Strategy Officer of Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable company in the U.S. I thought his answer was intriguing: he said that it is cable networks themselves who will determine the sustainability of the model, depending on whether they choose to put their full-length programs online for free or not.

Later in the session, he put a finer point on his argument, saying that "a move to online distribution by cable networks would directly undermine the affiliate fees that are critical to creating great content" and that finding ways to offer these programs only to paying broadband Internet access subscribers was a far better model for today's cable networks and operators to pursue (for more see Todd Spangler's coverage at Multichannel News).

Peter's point echoes my recent "Cord-Cutters" post: to the extent that cable networks - which now attract over 50% of prime-time viewership, and derive a third or more of their total revenues from affiliate fees - withhold their most popular programs from online distribution, they provide a powerful firewall against cord-cutting. Speaking for myself for example, the prospect of missing AMC's "Mad Men" (not available online anywhere, at least not yet...) would be a powerful disincentive for me to yank out my Comcast boxes.

Still, our audience Q&A segment revealed some very basic cracks in the panelists' assertions that the transition to the broadband era can be orderly and managed (not to mention that afterwards, I was privately barraged by skeptical attendees). First and foremost these individuals argued the idea that the cable industry can maintain the value of its subscription service by using the control-oriented approach typified by the traditional windowing process flies in the face of valuable lessons learned by the music industry.

Of course most of us know that sorry story well by now: an assortment of entrenched, head-in-the-sand record labels forcing a margin rich, but speciously valued product (namely the full album or CD) on digitally empowered audiences, who decided to take matters into their own hands by stealing every song they could click their mouses on. Consequently, a white knight savior (Apple) offering a legitimate and consumer-friendly purchase alternative (iPod + iTunes), which would grew to be so popular that it has made the record labels beholden to it, while simultaneously hollowing out the last vestiges of the original album-oriented business model.

Does history repeat itself? Are Peter and the other brightest lights of the cable industry deluding themselves into thinking that a closed, high-margin, windowed platform like cable can ever possibly morph itself into a flexible, must-have service for today's YouTube/Facebook generation?

As Fred succinctly wrapped things up, "The reason I love capitalism is that it forces all of us to keep doing things better and better." To be sure, broadband and digital delivery are unleashing the most powerful capitalistic forces the video industry has yet seen. What impact these forces ultimately have on today's market participants is a question that only time will answer.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

Welcome to November. October was a particularly crazy month with the unfolding financial crisis. Here are 3 key themes.

1. Financial crisis hurts all industries; broadband is no exception

In October the financial crisis was omnipresent. During the month I addressed its probable effects on the broadband industry here and here so I'm not going to spend much more time on it today. Suffice to say, for the foreseeable future, the key industry metrics are financing, staffing and customer spending. Conserving cash and getting to breakeven are paramount for all.

In particular, in "Thinking in Terms of a 'GOTI' Objective" I tried to provide some food for thought about why focus is so important right now. Industry CEOs' jobs have gotten a whole lot harder in the wake of the meltdown; those with the best strategic and financial skills will come through the storm, others will encounter significant challenges.

I'm constantly trying to gauge just how developed the broadband video industry actually is. All kinds of indicators continue to suggest to me that we're still in the very early days. For example, in one post this month comparing iTunes and Hulu, it was evident that iTunes is currently far outpacing Hulu in TV episode-related revenues. Remember that Hulu is the undisputed premium ad-supported aggregator. And that the ad-supported business model itself is predicted by most to eventually be far larger than the paid model. That iTunes is so far ahead for now shows how young Hulu really is (in fact, just celebrating its first anniversary) and how much more development the ad-supported model still has ahead of it.

I think another relevant indicator of progress is how well the broadband medium is distinguishing itself from alternatives by capitalizing on its key strengths. In "Broadband Video Needs to Become More Engaging," I noted that while there have recently been positive signs of progress, overall, much of broadband's engagement potential is still untapped. That's why I'm always encouraged by compelling UGV contests like the one Fox and Metacafe unveiled this month or by technology like EveryZing's new MetaPlayer that drives more granular interactivity. To truly succeed, broadband must become more than just an online video-on-demand medium.

As ISPs, cable operators account for the lion's share of broadband Internet access. Further, their ongoing efforts to increase bandwidth widens the universe of addressable homes for high-quality content delivery. Still, their multichannel subscription-based business model is increasingly threatened by broadband's on-demand, a la carte nature. As delivery quality escalates and consumer spending remains pinched, the notion of dropping cable in favor of online-only access become more alluring.

Yet in "Cutting the Cord on Cable: For Most of Us It's Not Happening Any Time Soon," I explained why restricted access to popular cable network programs and an inability to easily view broadband video on the TV will keep cable operators in a healthy position for some time to come. Still, it's a confusing landscape; this month I noticed Time Warner Cable itself helped foster cable bypass, when in the midst of its retransmission standoff with LIN TV, it offered an instructive video for how to watch most broadcast network programming online. Comcast also got into the act, unveiling "Premiere Week" on its Fancast portal. These kinds of initiatives remind consumers there's a lot of good stuff available for free online; all you need is a broadband connection.

Lots more to come in November, stay tuned.

The latest battle over "retransmission consent" is now underway between Time Warner Cable and LIN TV. These fights crop up periodically, but what's different about this one is that TW is offering instructions to its customers for how to hook their PCs to their TVs so they can view LIN's prime-time programming from the applicable network affiliate's web site.

Time Warner has set up instructional sites, such as http://www.tellthetruthwluk.com/main.phpfor residents of the Green Bay, WI area affected by the outage. Prominently displayed at the site is a 3 minute video with the step-by-step instructions for connecting a PC to a TV. (As a sidenote, the video itself is a great example of a how-to broadband video, but I'd bet that it makes the process look far easier than it is likely to be for most average consumers).

But the all-too-obvious question that I raise: once TW customers get the hookup working, how long will it take them to realize that by bypassing TW's service, some cable network programming can now also be viewed this way, and for free? TW may be inadvertently helping its own customers realize that the $40-$60/month or so they're paying TW may be avoidable.

To my knowledge, this is the first time in these regular retrans flareups involving broadcasters and cable operators (mostly) that broadband has been injected into the mix. In these situations the warring companies usually focus on tactics like LIN offering a $50 credit to consumers to sign up for DISH satellite service or Time Warner handing out over 50,000 free antennas to its customers to receive LIN stations the pre-cable TV, over-the-air way.

But now, with broadband access to prime-time network programs rampant, cable operators have a new tactic to buttress their argument that these broadcast programs are available for free already, so they - and in turn the consumer - should not have to pay for them.

This situation underscores what I've been saying for a while: that broadcast networks' and local affiliates' strategic agendas are falling out of line, as the networks have embraced online delivery wholeheartedly and local stations are left without their historical de facto exclusivity to key prime-time programs.

Of course the root issue here is that local broadcasting is a business built on analog-determined geographic markets. With the advent of digital delivery over the Internet, the networks have increasingly realized that they can go direct to their target audiences. Sometimes they've been friendlier to their local affiliates by giving them some branding or cutting them in on the ad revenues. Yet long-term, the schism between networks and local affiliates seems inevitable. That means that these retransmission fights are bound to only get nastier in the future.

(Note: I'll have Peter Stern, Time Warner Cable's EVP of Product and Strategy on my Nov. 10th Broadband Video Leadership Panel in Boston, "How to Profit from Broadband Video's Disruptive Impact." Click here for early bird registration and information.)

What do you think? Post a comment now.

To the disappointment of many, it looks like there won't be any big news about the cable industry's "Project Canoe" at the Cable Show convention in New Orleans this week.

Project Canoe is a high-profile partnership among the nation's six largest cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks) to enable national interactive advertising campaigns to be executed across the companies' cable operations. The code-name Canoe is meant to emphasize that cable operators are working together in the same boat, so to speak.

For the past nine months, the partners' Canoe leads have been meeting weekly. Once a top secret initiative, Canoe's existence was leaked in a September, 2007 Wall Street Journal article. But since then there has been no new information, leading to speculation about how much progress has been made.

Yet Canoe remains a top priority throughout the industry, and for good reason. With big advertisers like GM and Intel shifting their once big-budgeted TV ad campaigns to the Internet in significant sums, it's key that the cable operators need to figure out a way to not only protect the $5 billion or so that they generate in spot-cable advertising today, but also to increase their piece of the $70 billion dollar TV ad spend or cut into other slices of the massive US total ad spend pie. The next 3-5 years will be critical as cable advertising, the Internet and broadband video jostle for advertisers' affections.

The buzz in New Orleans suggests advertisers and agencies are excited about Canoe, though its development seems slower than they prefer. Why the slow progress that's perceived? Several operators stated that integrating the infrastructure required to execute Canoe with cable's legacy systems is hard stuff. No doubt. Then of course there are other key priorities weighing on the industry resources, such as the February 2009 digital transition.

Meanwhile, the Internet and broadband video advertising continue steaming ahead, giving advertisers and their agencies the measurement and targetability that they yearn for on TV. Cable operators have been stymied in their ability to jointly offer advertisers easy access to a nationwide or near-nationwide footprint, especially critical for Video on Demand. Canoe addresses this and other opportunities, in part by creating a set of standards for all to follow.

The only Canoe "news" at this week's Cable Show came from Comcast's Steve Burke, who stated that a CEO would be announced on June 1. Comcast is a key player in Canoe, funding between $50-70 million of the $150 million initial investment. Rumors have swirled that David Verklin, who recently stepped down as CEO of Aegis North America (a large advertising services firm) will assume the position of CEO. If true, that could be the news to break on June 1.