<![CDATA[ Latest from Next TV in Arris-market ]]> https://www.nexttv.com/tag/arris-market Thu, 11 Dec 2014 14:30:00 +0000 en <![CDATA[ Portico TV Sets Up Shop At Arris’s OTT ‘Market’ ]]> https://www.nexttv.com/news/portico-tv-sets-shop-arris-s-ott-market-386217 qCd4Sc94PZXeta4cVeRpuk Thu, 11 Dec 2014 14:30:00 +0000

Portico TV, Net2TV Corp.’s free, ad-supported streaming TV service, will secure a new distribution point early next year when Arris adds offering to its OTT platform for set-top boxes. 

Arris will offer Portico TV on set-top boxes outfitted with the recently launched Arris Market, an OTT offering that complements traditional linear TV programming offered by cable operators via the vendor’s Whole Home Solution, which is anchored by a six-tuner HD-DVR with an integrated DOCSIS 3.0 modem and WiFi connectivity. Arris has not announced any operator deployments of Arris Market, though it’s believed that WideOpenWest will tap into it to provide access to Netflix on the MSO’s “Ultra TV” platform, which relies on Arris-made multi-room HD-DVRs. Other MSOs that have rolled out Arris's Whole Home Solution include Shaw Communications, Buckeye CableSystem, EastLink, Comporium, Consolidated Communications and Service Electric Cable TV. 

Portico TV currently offers more than a dozen free, ad-supported OTT VOD channels with partners that feature long-form TV shows, including “Better Homes and Gardens,” “Southern Living,” “Saveur,” “Cooking Light,” “World Eats,” “Inside Golf,” “Cycle World, “Sports Illustrated,” “Field & Stream,” “A Closer Look with the AP,” “Newsy in 30,” "NASA Television," “The Week in TIME,” “PEOPLE This Week,” “Celeb TV,” and “Popular Science.”

Portico TV’s content is produced by curating and stitching together short-form Web videos on a given topic into 30- or 60-minute programs that are structured like traditional TV shows, including teasers before commercial breaks and a host who transitions viewers from one segment to the next.

The Arris agreement “gives us an opportunity to be in the same neighborhood of the most popular channels on television,” Jim Monroe, Net2TV’s SVP of programming, said.

Portico TV is also offered on Roku boxes, Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, and connected TVs from Samsung, LG Electronics, and Philips. Portico TV also has a deal with Sony, but hasn’t been launched on that platform yet.

Net2TV won’t say how many consumers are tuning in, but Monroe said Portico TV is getting a 30% repeating viewing rate, and a “completion rate” in the range of 90% to 95%, with average viewing of 19 to 22 minutes.

While the notion of creating subscription-based programming is on the company’s roadmap, it’s not something Net2TV has executed on so far. 

“We’re taking cues from our programming partners,” Monroe said.

]]> <![CDATA[ Arris Makes Over-the-Top Pitch ]]> https://www.nexttv.com/news/arris-makes-over-top-pitch-382771 57zhQ3QBE38Ad6f2AU7oWU Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:00:00 +0000

In a move aimed at loosening TiVo’s tightening grip on the nation’s independent cable operators, Arris said it is zeroing in on the launch of an applications marketplace that will enable its pay TV partners to mix over-the-top fare with traditional live video services.

The cable-tailored “Arris Market” is powered in part by Wurl, a startup that will host the third-party apps, provide a “strong indexing engine” and furnish metadata that will allow users to search for content across many of those apps on an aggregate basis rather than requiring them to sift for content by opening up the individual apps, Ron Miller, vice president of product management for Arris’s Consumer Solutions Group, explained.

Arris will offer the new app store via its Whole Home Solution, a product set that is anchored by a six-tuner HD-DVR/gateway outfitted with a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and integrated WiFi. That product came out of Arris’s $20 million acquisition of Digeo, Paul Allen’s video set-top and software business, in 2009.

Miller said one of Arris’s “major customers” will start to test the new cloud-based apps platform with employees in the next couple of weeks, with two more operator partners set to follow ahead of a broad commercial launch. Arris isn’t disclosing them, but candidates include operators that have already rolled out or announced deals to deploy the company’s platform, including Shaw Communications, WideOpenWest, Buckeye CableSystem, EastLink, Comporium, Consolidated Communications and Service Electric Cable TV.

“A lot of [partners] are looking at this option,” Miller said. Arris is also being coy about which apps will grace its market when it launches, but expects that it will support dozens of them in its baseline offering.

Miller confirmed that Netflix “will be visible in Arris Market as a separate application,” but added that operators will need to secure agreements with the video streamer before it can be added to the mix on leased boxes. Netflix’s rules also won’t allow Wurl to index its content, Miller said, but added that there are no technical hurdles that would prevent any of Arris’s partners from offering Netflix via its Whole Home Solution.

Arris’s revised offering will tangle with TiVo, which has already enabled Netflix on boxes leased by several of its U.S. cable partners, and has recently unleashed an apps store offered in partnership with Opera. Comcast has shown some interest in licensing its X1 platform to other cable operators, including independent MSOs, but has not announced any agreements involving trials or deployments. Cox Communications and Comcast confirmed in January that they have held some X1-related licensing talks.

Arris and Wurl said they will demonstrate the new apps platform this week at The Independent Show in Kansas City.

]]>