Monty Solomon posted:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/viacomcbss-pluto-tv-boosts-marketing-as-free-streaming-services-intensify-fight-11583168847
"Free streaming services like Pluto TV, Tubi and Xumo have been overshadowed by
the high-stakes, high-cost battle among ad-free streaming rivals such as
Netflix Inc., Walt Disney Co. 's Disney+ and AT&T Inc.'s planned HBO Max.
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"But as audiences drift away from traditional ad-supported TV toward viewing
over the internet, Pluto TV and similar services argue that the shift will
include more viewing on free and ad-supported streaming platforms."
But we have heard of this trend's existence for a long time now. It's only the
trade scribes, forever hyping up subscription services, who seem to be
surprised. This is the way the majority of the web works, ad-supported, so why
should it be unexpected for streaming TV to also fit this business model well?
To justify support for this business model,
https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/top-pay-tv-providers-lost-nearly-5m-subscribers-in-2019
"DURHAM, N.H.-Pay-TV providers may like to forget 2019 as soon as possible, as
a report from Leichtman Research Group found that among the largest pay-TV
providers in the U.S.-which make up about 95% of the market-there was a loss of
about 4,915,000 net video subscribers. That is up from the 1,585,000
subscribers lost in 2018."
And those numbers include VMVPDs.
"The only group that saw an overall growth was vMVPDs, represented in LRG's
report by Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV and AT&T TV Now. Combined, the three groups
added just over a million subscribers in 2019. However, that number was down
from 1.94 million net adds in 2018, which represented a 50% increase at that
time; 2019's addition represented an 18% increase. AT&T TV Now was the only
vMVPD to lose subscribers and is the only one that came in under a million
(926,000) at the end of 2019."
So there you have it. Those bailing out of legacy MVPDs are not flocking to
VMVPDs, or at least, not in a major way. Which explains why services like Pluto
TV make sense.
(I was put off by their requirement to download something. Might try it out
anyway.)
Bert
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