Energy efficiency commitments by the top cable/broadband providers saved consumers more than $2.2 billion in energy costs in 2020, according to a new report from the Consumer Technology Association, which along with NCTA-the Internet & Television Association and Cable Labs led the agreement.

Among the companies that struck voluntary agreements are Comcast, Charter, Cox and AT&T (DirecTV) and Dish.

Also Read: NCTA, CTA Renew Set-Top Agreement

Since the agreements were struck eight years ago, the set-top savings are pushing $10 billion and in total, set-top energy use was cut by more than half over those eight years, even as function and features have expanded.

The agreements got an upgrade in 2020 with some more rigorous efficiency standards -- some 97% of new set-tops purchased in 2020 met those tougher standards -- that boosted efficiency by 20% over the previous targets.

Also Read: Audit Shows MVPDs Meeting Energy Efficiency Goals

“The group has achieved remarkable success both by driving down the energy used by set-top boxes and through innovations that have reduced the number of set-top boxes used by consumers,” said NCTA General Counsel Neal Goldberg in a statement.

One energy-reducing factor has been the increasing use of laptops, tablets and smart phones to access video as an alternative to powering up a set-top.

The next boost in efficiency levels will come in 2023 per a new (2021) agreement.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and the Consumer Technology Association have extended their voluntary agreement on set-top box energy efficiency for a third time, through the end of 2025.

The Voluntary Agreement for Ongoing Improvement to the Energy Efficiency of Set-Top Boxes was struck in 2012 between the Consumer Technology Association, whose members make the boxes, and NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, whose members deploy them.

Also Read: Audit Shows MVPDs Meeting Energy Efficiency Goals

The associations said that since the agreement was struck, it has saved consumers $7 billion in energy costs and 39 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The renewed agreement boosts energy efficiency commitments starting in 2023, translating, by the end of 2025, to set tops that use only one third of the energy they used in 2012.

Among the signatories to the agreement are AT&T/DirecTV, Comcast, Charter, Dish, Verizon, Cox, Altice, and Frontier.

Also Read: Energy Gold Star: CTA, NCTA Renew Set-Top Efficiency Pact

Dr. Kathleen Hogan, acting under secretary for science and energy at the Department of Energy, said DOE welcomed the extension and industry's "continued efforts of our industry partners to improve the energy efficiency of these products and save consumers money on their energy bills."

One energy-reducing factor has been the increasing use of laptops, tablets and smart phones to access video as an alternative to powering up a set-top.

AT&T CFO John Stephens told investors Tuesday that the company’s new Android TV powered set-top, which it calls Osprey, will be a true replacement for linear satellite TV and its associated truck rolls.

“The biggest cost we have is the truck roll and getting that installation out,” Stephens said at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference. (Transcript courtesy of Seeking Alpha.)

“We’ve been beta testing it within our employee base a thing called Osprey, which is a self-installed, full linear product,” he explained. “You don't have to do a roll the truck, pull out a ladder, climb the roof and put out a satellite dish. You can hook this box into your fiber line, your broadband line--whether it's ours or somebody else's--so effectively the only truck roll is the UPS truck.”

AT&T employees actually leaked technical documents surrounding Osprey on Reddit in September of last year. AT&T executives had talked about replacing satellite TV with an IP-based video service, but this is the first time they have officially acknowledged Osprey. 

“It dramatically reduces our install cost, dramatically reduces our subscriber acquisition costs—[it’s] very cost friendly—and we're working to get that right. That will be the next step in taking costs out that makes it more efficient and allows us to provide customers a price point that they can afford and partnering with our content guys and with our own selves to make economics work,” Stephens said. 

French technology vendor Technicolor SA has responded to a Reuters report that it is looking to sell all or part of itself, as it grapples with a downturn in its pay TV set-top business.

“This is an ongoing process in keeping with management's mission to deliver value for shareholders," Technicolor said in the statement. "In this regard, Technicolor stresses that any discussions are at a preliminary stage. No strategic decision or commitment has been made.”

Reuters reported that Technicolor has been talking recently to other companies and private equity firms, including Bain Capital, about sale and merger options.

Related: Technicolor, Cisco Seal the Deal

Technicolor, which has provided media services to film and TV companies for nearly a century, paid $600 million in 2015 for Cisco’s set-top business.

Consolidation of pay TV operators has challenged that business. But the recent global shortage of multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) has further constrained profitability for Technicolor.

For its part, rival Arris consolidated its set-top holdings around the same time Technicolor bought out Cisco, paying $2.1 billion for the No. 2 set-top maker at the time, the UK’s Pace. Two weeks ago, Arris announced a deal to sell itself to CommScope.

Technicolor’s Connected Home unit, which houses its set-top manufacturing business, generated 56% of the company’s overall revenue in the first half of this year. 

Last week, the NCTA put out an announcement touting an energy savings valued at $3.5 billion since top pay TV operators and vendors began working back in 2012 to lower energy consumption of set-tops.

Of course, as is usually the perspective of the tech press, the the linear pay TV industry’s glass is half empty.

Related: NCTA: More Than 100M OTT Devices Were Used in 2017 to Access Pay TV Services sans Set-top

As noted by VentureBeat, the typical power-saving mode on the average pay TV DVR delivers a minuscule energy savings—a dynamic the site compared to the “close door” button on elevators, which have generally been inert since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.

“They knew people feel better with a button to push when they are feeling impatient,” VentureBeat writer Joe Bamberg noted. “It seems cable and telco companies have taken their cues from elevator manufacturers in the design of their DVRs.”

Bamberg analyzed data compiled by D+R International, the independent auditor who has analyzed the six-year energy savings progress generated by the pay TV industry-wide consortium. He also factored in energy-use data from pay TV companies including Comcast.

An Arris-made Xfinity DVR, he noted, consumes 24.5 watts while on power-save/standby/sleep mode—just 5.7% less juice than the 26 watts it uses when it’s in its full operational setting.

This is unnecessary, Bamberg noted, given that other video devices figure out how to power up and down quickly with significant energy savings. Sony’s PlayStation 4, for example, gobbles up 137 watts while powered on, but only 8.5 watts while it’s sleeping.

Bamberg said that many pay TV set-tops use Broadcom BCM 7425 chip, which has four different sleep modes. “One of the sleep modes would bring your cable box back to full operation from an extremely low power, deep sleep in five seconds,” he wrote. "A simple software tweak could enable low power mode and significantly reduce energy usage while imposing negligible manufacturing costs on the cable providers.”

Interestingly, Bamberg based his findings on D+R’s August 2017 report, which studied 2016 set-tops and not the latest D+R report issued last week--and cited by the NCTA in the cable lobbying org’s much more positive spin on pay TV set-top energy use.

While both reports support the author’s conclusion, the most recent one studying 2017 set-tops has a few green shoots in terms of sleep mode energy performance.

For example, the Charter’s Technicolor-made model 8640HDC2 DVR delivers nearly a 22% electricity savings while in sleep mode. DirecTV’s H44-500 saves only 9.6% of power in sleep mode, but it only uses 10.4 watts while in full operation.

The pay TV industry seems to disagree that its DVRs can be powered up quickly from more energy-efficient levels of sleep.

“While some power scaling successes have been achieved, set-top boxes in ‘light’ sleep mode typically use much of the power that they consume in on mode, and trialed ‘deep’ sleep modes had re-start times too lengthy to be tolerated by consumers,” D+R noted in its latest report.

Bamberg seems to shoot down this industry-side assertion effectively. But perhaps the focus on sleep mode efficiency misses some larger points.

Overall, pay TV DVRs used 11% less power than they did in 2016, according to the latest D+R report, and a whopping 46% less than they did in 2012, when the industry-wide power-saving collaboration started.

The list of set-tops studied by D+R in 2017 includes an increasing number of thin-client devices, most of which use less than 10 watts in full operation.

While U.S. pay TV operators had around 52,673,000 DVR set-tops in the market in 2016, the number declined to 49,891,000 last year. In fact, the number of thin-client and “non-DVR” pay TV set-tops declined, too, as cord cutting and the rise of virtual services began to transform consumer engagement habits in earnest. The number of all U.S. pay TV set-tops in the market dropped about 5.6% to 201.7 million.

Is the point moot?

“Smart TVs are absolutely part of our strategy and our vision,” said Comcast’s Xfinity services chief Matthew Strauss, telling Fast Company last month that the No. 1 cable operator is now full onboard with streaming its X1 platform to connected TV’s instead of delivering it with a leased proprietary set-top. “When you look at the video landscape today, there are more choices than have ever been available before at the touch of a remote. It’s a good time to be alive if you like television.”

The way in which TV viewers search for and consume content at home on their primary television sets is radically changing. Did you know there is a pecking order in how we watch TV? It turns out most people choose their programs the same way.

These are the findings from our company’s independent research to better understand consumer behavior when it comes to watching TV.

Most TV viewers faced with a mountain of available content break down their viewing options into a discernable pattern in choosing what to watch first, second, third and fourth in a pecking order of preference.

(1) First, viewers tune to highly anticipated “top tier” content (i.e., live sports, breaking news or a debuting episode of a favorite series);

(2) If this “top tier” live content is not on, the second choice is specific pre-recorded (DVR or VOD) content – again this tends to be favorite programming;

(3) The third choice happens if VOD or DVR content isn’t appealing at that moment – viewers go to streaming services like Hulu, Netflix or Amazon Video, or look at DVR-recorded programs that have yet to become a favorite; and

(4) Finally, if all else fails, viewers will select from the guide listing or by scrolling across live TV for what’s on their favorite channels currently -- and when they do this, it’s for the most casual of engagement, using the TV as a background while doing other things.

Despite the fact there’s more content and channels than ever before, viewers are “channel surfing” less and less. This trend is troubling for linear TV programmers and service providers, as much of the valued or high-cost content is not on the radar for many of today’s TV viewers.

What’s holding viewers back from exploring all this diverse content could be the way we navigate.

Many consumers will tell you there’s an overwhelming number of buttons and function keys on a standard universal remote control, which can be intimidating and confusing. Some users will go as far as to cover sections of their remote completely, with tape or other materials, fearing that pressing the wrong button could alter settings and leave them unable to watch any TV -- and require another call to customer tech support.

Companies like Comcast and Dish have introduced voice navigation for their subscribers, and it’s proving to be a hit! This technology can now deliver more than 90% search accuracy.

Today’s fickle and overwhelmed couch potato is a creature of habit. A pecking order for selecting what to watch on the big screen will always be a part of their routine. And just as streaming services are now a natural part of their viewing experience, voice navigation will be too, along with other innovations that should delight consumers.

 Ultimately this will result in a better user experience. And at the end of the day, that’s what all of us in this business strive for, isn’t it?

Stephen Gutman is senior vice president, Subscription Broadcast Unit – Americas, at remote control and sensor technology vendor Universal Electronics, where he serves as a consultant to the customer premises equipment group at nearly every major MVPD across North and South America.