Freebies Are the Key Hook of the ‘Streaming Wars’

If you make it free, will they come? Apple, Disney and AT&T’s WarnerMedia want to jump-start their challenges to Netflix by offering freebies and deep discounts on emerging streaming plans.

That includes a free year of Apple TV Plus for customers of new Apple devices and a free year of Disney Plus to higher-tier Verizon customers.

Some existing HBO subscribers will also get the supercharged version, HBO Max, at no additional cost.

Experts say these services can worry later about holding onto customers — perhaps by offering must-see shows they can’t get anywhere else or tying discounts to other services that are difficult to drop.


“Next year is a race to aggregate consumers,” said Kevin Westcott, who heads Deloitte’s U.S. telecommunication, media and entertainment consulting business.

“The first war is getting them to sign up for a service.
The second war is retaining them.”

The new services have to attract users with marketing blitzes and the promise of original shows and movies, then build a big enough library of old favorites to help keep them.

Already, HBO Max will have “Friends ” exclusively, and Disney is taking back its older movies from Netflix.

A lot of shows and movies won’t be available at launch but will be added over time.
Free helps in the meantime.

Netflix has spent years building up its 158 million subscribers worldwide.
Hulu has 28 million.

The new players want to ramp up subscribers quickly to show they can compete.

So the services have launched the digital equivalent of the old cable promos: lure you in with discounted rates, then jack up the price after a year or two.

But digital customers have more choices than cable customers of yore so a big question is whether they’ll stick around.


Apple TV Plus debuts Friday for $5 a month with just nine shows and a few more coming soon.
It’s already cheaper than the $13 a month Netflix charges for its most popular plan.
Buyers of any new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac or iPod Touch get a year for free.
That suggests a market of 40 million customers, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said.

Disney Plus, which arrives Nov. 12, is also cheaper than Netflix at $7 a month.
Disney struck a deal with Verizon to give customers of all unlimited wireless plans and some home-internet customers a free year.

Members of Disney’s free D23 fan club were also eligible to buy three years of Disney Plus service upfront for the price of two years.

Disney is targeting 60 million to 90 million worldwide by 2024.

AT&T’s HBO Max, which launches in May for $15 a month, is the most expensive of the new services.

That could make it tough for AT&T to reach its goal of 50 million U.S. customers and 75 million to 90 million worldwide by 2025.

But AT&T will make the service free for about 10 million existing HBO subscribers, or about a third of its U.S. subscribers.
HBO Max will also be included with AT&T’s higher-tier wireless and broadband offerings.

Comcast’s Peacock service will be free for many of its own cable and internet customers.
The regular price hasn’t been announced yet.
The service launches next spring.

“I don’t think customers are going to have to make difficult choices about cutting one in order to add another for the first few years,” said MoffettNathanson Research’s Craig Moffett.

But companies can’t run the services at a loss forever, and when discounts end and prices rise, customers may flee.
After all, the services add up fast, and signing up to multiple ones could end up costing as much as the cable packages people are ditching for streaming.

There’s a lesson to be drawn from the latest TV-industry attempt to counter cord-cutting.
Cable-like online packages like Sling TV and YouTube TV have ended discounts or raised prices, causing customers to flee and new sign-ups to slow down.

Sony announced Tuesday that it will quit offering PlayStation Vue, one of the first to challenge traditional TV packages.

Even the dominant player isn’t immune.
Netflix has raised prices slowly, which helped shield it from price shock, but its latest small increase has hurt customer growth.

Westcott, the Deloitte consultant, compared the streaming promotions to efforts to lure wireless customers from competing companies.


T-Mobile has long offered Netflix free to many customers.
Verizon includes six free months of Apple Music with some of its unlimited plans.
Many offer other deals like paying off your phone early or getting a phone for free if you switch.

“They were constantly looking for ways to steal you off other players,” he said.

How will these services keep users once they’ve reeled them in?

The companies can constantly refresh their services with new shows and movies, Diffusion Group president Michael Greeson said.

Cathy Yao, an analyst at Diamond Hill Capital Management, also said companies can try to create “stickiness” by bundling the services with other products and services so a customer is less inclined to unsubscribe.

For example, including HBO Max with wireless and broadband services will make consumers more likely to stick around for all three, Yao said.

It’s similar to how Amazon packages its streaming service with its $119-a-year Prime loyalty program.

Ultimately, the content will be king, experts say.
The services are investing billions into creating new shows and building up their libraries to find or create the next “Stranger Things.”


Apple TV Plus inked high-profile deals with Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Jennifer Aniston.

Comcast’s NBCUniversal reportedly paid $500 million to take back “The Office,” and Netflix reportedly paid even more to claim global rights to “Seinfeld.”

“The weapon of choice for retention is exclusive programming,” said Peter Csathy, founder of Creative and an industry consultant.
“All of these behemoths are investing billions of dollars in originals with the hope of finding the next ‘Game of Thrones’ that becomes ‘Must See TV.'”

source: usa.inquirer.net

Online Video Content Doubled in 4 Years

The number of young Americans watching online videos every day has more than doubled, according to survey findings released Tuesday. They’re glued to them for nearly an hour a day, twice as long as they were four years ago.

And often, the survey found, they’re seeing the videos on services such as YouTube that are supposedly off-limits to children younger than age 13.

“It is the air they breathe,” said Michael Robb, senior director of research for Common Sense Media, the nonprofit organization that issued the report.


The group tracks young people’s tech habits and offers guidance for parents.



The survey of American youth included the responses of 1,677 young people, ages 8 to 18.

Among other things, it found that 56% of 8- to 12-year-olds and 69% of 13- to 18-year-olds watch online videos every day.

In 2015, the last time the survey was conducted, those figures were 24% and 34%, respectively.
The margin of error was plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Overall screen time hasn’t changed much in those four years, the survey found.
The average tween, ages 8 to 12 for the purposes of this survey, spent four hours and 44 minutes with entertainment media on digital devices each day.

For teens, it was seven hours and 22 minutes.

That did not include the time using devices for homework, reading books or listening to music.

But the findings on video-watching indicate just how quickly this generation is shifting from traditional television to streaming services, often viewed on smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Among the teens surveyed, only a third said they enjoyed watching traditional television programming “a lot,” compared with 45% four years ago.

Half of the tweens said the same, compared with 61% in the last survey.


YouTube was their overwhelming first choice for online videos, even among the tweens who were surveyed — three-quarters of whom say they use the site despite age restrictions.

Only 23% in that age group said they watch YouTube Kids, a separate service aimed at them and even younger children.

And of those, most still said they preferred regular YouTube.

“It puts a lot of pressure on a parent to figure out what they can reasonably filter,” Robb said.

When presented with the findings, YouTube said that, in the coming months, it will share details on ways the company is rethinking its approach to kids and families.

For now, Farshad Shadloo, a spokesperson for YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, reiterated the company’s terms of use on age: “YouTube is not a site for people under 13.”

Among other things, the company also cited its restriction filters and YouTube Kids.

Even so, many children with online access are adept at getting access to regular YouTube or other streaming content — partly because their parents are overwhelmed, said Sarah Domoff, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Central Michigan University who studies tech’s impact on youth and families.

Those parents could certainly be doing more to track screen time, she said.
But, as she sees it, filters on services such as YouTube also aren’t adequate.

“It’s really hard to block out certain things unless you’re standing over your child,” Domoff said.
That’s especially hard to do when devices are portable.

Some are skeptical about how much YouTube will change a service that easily leads its users, young and old alike, down a “rabbit hole” of video content, much of it created by everyday people.

“If your model is built on maintaining attention, it’s really hard to do something,” said Robb, of Common Sense Media.

His advice to families: “Protect homework time, family time, dinner time and bedtime.
Have device-free times or zones.”

Domoff added, “There needs to be a game plan.”

Associated Press

Star-studded debut for Apple’s streaming service

CALIFORNIA—A stream of celebrities, including Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston and “Aquaman” star Jason Momoa, are announcing new TV shows exclusive to Apple’s new streaming TV service.

Aniston will star with Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell in a show called “Morning Show.”

Spielberg will direct a sci-fi show called “Amazing Stories,” inspired by stories his dad used to read as a kid.

Momoa will star in a show called “Sea,” which takes place in a world devastated by a virus that wiped out most of the population, leaving survivors blind.

Big Bird of “Sesame Street” also showed up to promote a new show for preschoolers.

Apple’s long-awaited video streaming service is called Apple TV Plus and includes original programming that CEO Tim Cook says will show “great storytelling.”

The service will compete with Netflix and Amazon Video.

Apple’s new subscription TV service will be available this fall. —AP

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Bon Appetit launches new food streaming channel

Gourmet United States magazine Bon Appetit has launched a new streaming channel for its three million YouTube subscribers and nearly 2.3 million Facebook followers.

Thanks in part to the magazine’s breakout stars like Brad Leone and Claire Saffitz and some witty editing, the magazine has managed to parlay its print presence into a series of popular videos which, on YouTube alone, has garnered more than 420 million views.

This week, the Conde Nast title launched a channel that can be streamed on TV via devices like Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV.

Fan-favorite Brad Leone, who largely focuses on fermented foods as host of the show “It’s Alive” is particularly popular with the ladies and gents for his good looks, boyish antics and humor. New on the streaming channel, “It’s Alive” hits the road for original shows that take Leone to different food destinations, starting with Texas.

Pastry chef Claire Saffitz also generates millions of views for videos in which she attempts to recreate junk foods like Snickers candy bars, Pringles chips and Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

Her video on making instant ramen published in November 2018, for instance, has so far racked up more than 7 million views.

Along with new and old shows, the channel will also stream all 24 episodes of Jamie Oliver’s series “The Naked Chef” which marks its 20th anniversary this year.

The channel is free to stream and download. JB

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net