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Premium channels strike back: Showtime, HBO and Starz say they're adding subscribers, not losing them
Yesterday The NPD Group released data from a survey showing fewer US TV watchers are subscribing to premium cable channels, but now the networks say that isn't true. As first reported on the LA Times Company Town blog, spokespeople from HBO, Showtime and Starz have all refuted the numbers. Of the three, only Starz is publicly traded and reports its subscriber count quarterly, so it has the most detailed stats. While the fourth quarter numbers won't be out for another month or so, its customer count is at 22 million as of Q3, up 1.2 million from a year before, and 1.9 million 18 months prior. HBO and Showtime don't release the same kind of numbers, but point to stats from another market researcher, SNL Kagan that show their subscriber count and market penetration growing consistently over the past few years. According to Showtime, it's added one million customers per year, each year, for the last six years. Rich Greenfield of BTIG also points to quarterly earnings snippets that indicate recent growth for premium TV channels and considers the results of NPD's 7,500 household survey to be "misleading/meaningless." So why the discrepancy? Looking at the NPD chart, we see it measure the percentage of internet households with premium channels, so it could be skewed by people recently adding internet, but not premium channels. Whatever the case, even as Netflix (which will report its Q4 numbers tomorrow afternoon), Amazon, Hulu, Redbox and the rest expand, it appears the old model of TV distribution isn't on its deathbed just yet. Update: As reported by The Wrap, NPD has pulled the original report from its website, and is reviewing its data.
Pay TV subscriptions down during the 2nd quarter
One quarter is hardly a trend but any trend has to start somewhere and, for the first ever, pay TV subscriptions are down quarter over quarter according to SNL Kagen. The drop was only 216k subscribers of over 100 million, but up until now the number has always been headed in the up direction. Cable was the big loser here dropping 711k, while satellite and telecom companies pick up most of those. As you can see from the chart above, the dip wasn't enough to bring levels down to last year's levels, but while we doubt this is anything more than a blip, it could very well be the beginning of the end of TV as we know it -- sounds cool, but doubtful.
The State of Home Video study predicts a Blu-ray Golden Era of 2014-17
Want to know when, or if Blu-ray will overtake DVD? SNL Kagan's analysts went back to the crystal ball for The State of Home Video report and see high definition DVD (hey, that might include CBHD or HD NVD) taking 59.7% of the market in 2014, peaking in 2017 at 73.8% before video on-demand finally takes over. Still, Blu-ray will start picking up the slack on DVD sales (apparently slowed from earlier predictions by the current economic state) as early as next year, with player sales rising to $1.3 billion and finally reaching the mass market, before spiking in 2013. Unfortunately it appears we're in for quite a few more years of VOD services figuring out their technology and content packages, you ready to hang onto optical formats for a while longer?
