While cord-cutters and cord-nevers are redefining what the modern TV experience will look like in the future, the immense appetite for new and engaging content remains a constant. Live TV continues to reign as the most popular form of consumer content, although various models of on-demand content are becoming increasingly popular methods to access TV shows and movies. The global health crisis and subsequent lockdown viewing culture has only further highlighted the popularity of these viewing mediums. 

Conviva’s Streaming in the Time of Coronavirus report, published in early April 2020, found global streaming demand jumped by more than 20 per cent when compared with figures from March. Virtual, shared experiences are of greater significance now more than ever, and as a result, media companies are increasingly looking to offer highly personalized content to differentiate their services. 

Long before the COVID-19 outbreak, the media industry had been shifting its attention towards monetization opportunities which are able to accommodate and embrace the growing demand for more personalized and relevant video experiences. With the cost of content acquisition rights soaring and the pervasiveness of content digitization, maximizing revenues from every potential viewer is now of critical importance to media businesses. To manage these increasing challenges – including the complexities that surround content distribution negotiations - media content companies need to find new innovative ways to deliver high-quality content to expectant viewers. 

Luckily, the growing number of Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) and TV Everywhere (TVE) multiscreen services offered by broadcasters and operators are enabling advertisers to shift from traditional ‘one-to-many’ to ‘one-to-one’ session-based conversations with targeted audiences, in a high value premium TV environment. 

This nuanced approach is made possible thanks to high-quality, first-party data gathered from long-standing relationships established with end-users. 

Going beyond billboards: Target advertising 

With the steep rise in popularity of OTT video services, programmers and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) must find new methods of monetization through targeted advertising. 

(Server-side) Dynamic ad insertion (DAI) helps broadcasters and service providers to effectively personalize and monetize multiscreen video services across linear, OTT, and streaming services. By analyzing consumer profiles while complying with privacy protection regulations, TV operators and service providers can gain a better understanding of consumer behavior, and the type of content that different audience segments regard as premium. 

Through a more personalized advertising offering, broadcasters and service providers can retain much better control of the content they are delivering to viewers, based on geography, socio, demo and behavioral data, as well as enabling new monetization opportunities for existing inventory and content assets. 

To fully utilize this, media operators and content owners need vendors that can help them recognize the full revenue potential of advertising. Advertising solutions are now in place to empower advertisers to obtain a greater level of control and insight, enabling them to provide a more streamlined and cost-efficient means to reach audiences. This is particularly pertinent given the significant budget restrictions caused by the current situation around COVID-19 and its subsequent disruptive impact on the wider media landscape.

Leveraging industry standards 

In response to the increasing market complexity triggered by the surge of new OTT-based services, MVPDs must continue to offer natural value-adds to advertisers. For this, global standards will be critical for the successful management of programmatic advertising workflows. In addition, given the complexity behind handling distribution rights agreements, it will be vital that the industry adopts and supports key video standards such as the SCTE-224 standard, now regarded as the most advanced and standardized data model dedicated to distribution rights. 

SCTE-224 is being rapidly adopted by both broadcasters (as a way to define rights) and by operators (as a way to enforce them), particularly in the US. Moving forward, the combination of SCTE-35 to handle in-band signaling and SCTE-224 for processing out-of-band rules (such as blackout and program substitution) will be fundamental to enabling  easy deployments and implementations. 

It is very difficult to predict how consumers will gravitate towards different types of content consumption models. And with the global health crisis temporarily impacting traditional TV heavy hitters, such as sports and soap operas, operators need to be ready to react to the shifting needs of consumers and advertisers as quickly as possible. 

Operators today have a unique advantage as they are able to understand their audiences’ preferences and viewing patterns in greater depth than ever before. Having the core technology in place is a prerequisite, but almost as important is the ability to adapt in line with the market. Yet at a time when the current global health crisis is changing the dynamics of an already shifting media landscape, operators and broadcasters must continue to react to the needs of consumers and advertisers, and the challenges of a digital world.

Digital apps, born on mobile phones and nurtured by a nation of finger-tapping millennials, are about to change TV.

The data-packed buttons that dominate the first screens of most smartphones and tablets are about to comprehensively change the way most Americans access video entertainment.

That transformation is already happening, as cable, telco and satellite operators move to consolidate functionalities into their main apps. Eventually, with the proliferation of smart TVs, they’ll look to deliver their entire TV and Internet product suite through their own app, virtually eliminating the need for set-top boxes.

That could be a sea change for the business, as cable operators spend billions of dollars per year on new set-tops and box maintenance. But it’s a shift that could take several years as the cable network moves toward Internet protocol-based technologies.

The key is the set-top box, and the timing of its demise. Big operators like Comcast, with its X1 platform set-tops, and Charter Communications, with its WorldBox technology, are rolling out new set-top equipment that should at least have a multi-year lifespan.

Over the long term, though, the industry wants to move in an IP direction. Accelerating that evolution is the Federal Communications Commission’s move to bring more competition to the set-top industry by “unlocking” the cable box.

BOXED OUT

Since the FCC unveiled its plans to make the set-top market more competitive, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association has countered with its “ditch the box” initiative, an apps-based approach that would make cable content searchable beside over-the-top offerings while protecting copyright, advertising, and contractual arrangements with programmers.

Earlier this month, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said his final ruling will likely include suggestions from the cable industry. Operators have flirted with an app-based content delivery for the past few years, starting with Time Warner Cable’s IP trial in New York City with Roku in October 2015.

In April, Comcast announced its Xfinity TV Partner Program, which would extend a bridge to retail devices and enable subscribers to access their pay TV service, including live TV, VOD and cloud DVR recordings. At the same time, Comcast announced a deal with Roku that will bring its authenticated Xfinity TV partner app to Roku streaming players and integrated TVs.

Earlier this month, smaller operators got in on the app act, with tiny Mississippi-based wireless company C Spire announcing that it would make all of its video services available via apps, doing away with traditional set-tops later this year.

The C Spire service would target a wide range of platforms, including Roku players, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and iOS- and Android-based devices, as well as select smart TVs.

Teaming up with Mobi TV, C Spire will begin beta testing the service in November, featuring a full linear TV lineup including local broadcast stations, video-on-demand service, DVRs and a seven-day catch-up service.

For cable operators, apps have evolved significantly since they first came on the scene — essentially as a way for customers to use their smartphones as another TV remote. Today, they have become an integral part of the TV experience, offering not only another way to access programming in and out of the home, but a portal to help resolve customer service issues, change the levels of service and perform functions like programming DVRs.

Altice USA executive vice president and chief marketing officer Matt Lake has been deeply involved in app development since the MSO’s predecessor, Cablevision Systems, first introduced the Optimum apps in 2011. Since that time, Optimum has added customer- service apps (Optimum Support) and an app to help subscribers find the more than 1.5 million WiFi hotspots located throughout its New York metro area service territory.

“The objective is to make this as easy for customers as possible,” Lake said. “In the world of connectivity, it’s about simplifying complexity. What we’ve found is if there are particular needs for a customer out there, an app can potentially solve that.”

Lake said about 2 million customers have downloaded its Optimum TV, Optimum Support and Optimum WiFi apps since the TV app was first introduced in 2011. Today, on average, customers use at least one of the apps 45 times per month. Customers use the app for everything from watching TV — mostly in-home on different devices — to setting up service appointments and troubleshooting service glitches.

Eventually, the intention is to integrate all of those functions and more into a single app, but Altice USA is likely to take a wait-and-see stance regarding set-top replacement.

Instead, Altice USA sees apps as a means to improve the overall customer experience and to make the company stand out in what is an increasingly competitive environment.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure we have a differentiating experience for our customers and separate ourselves from the competition that is out there,” Lake said. “That’s how we tend to look our development eff orts and where we put our investment in terms of the different technologies we pursue.”

But apps aren’t necessarily foolproof. According to The Diffusion Group senior adviser Joel Espelien, there is a hidden danger for distributors that opt to replace set-tops with apps.

“Where this creates pressure for distributors is they will have a hard time encompassing everything into a single app they control,” Espelien said. “MVPDs can ditch the set-top box and create an app that is a virtual set-top box; that is definitely doable. The problem is the consumer has already moved beyond that.

“The MVPD can get rid of the box and get rid of the user experience all together. Then it becomes a billing relationship.”

Espelien added that he sees the app replacement as more of an experimental move, perhaps as an alternative for set-tops that have reached the end of their useful life.

“To do it across the board, I don’t think customers will be with it,” Espelien said. “They will face choices down the road and continue to let set-top boxes age in place.”

Still, other operators are willing to take that risk.

COX ON BOARD

“Unlock the box” is pushing Cox Communications toward more of an app-only environment, executive vice president of product development and management Steve Necessary said. The Atlanta-based MSO has introduced Contour Flex, a skinny-bundle service that can only be accessed on a mobile device via a specific app. Contour Flex began rolling out in July and is available in the majority of Cox markets, he said.

Cox is “absolutely” behind NCTA’s “ditch the box” initiative, Necessary said, and it’s looking closely at Comcast’s move earlier this year to make its X1 platform available through Roku boxes.

“We are very interested in following that activity,” he said.

“Ditch the box” calls for a single HTML5-based app to deliver service — a simple, one-time approach that has been a long time in coming, according to Necessary.

“From a Cox perspective, it’s never been a question of do we want to have apps and deliver our content more ubiquitously — we always did,” he said. “But what was historically one of the very painful realities is that every one of those apps needed to be different.

“When you started to look at the plethora of smart TVs, the wide variety of OTT-connected devices and game consoles [and] the burden that put on companies like Cox to continue to develop these apps and keep them up to date, you rendered them unfeasible,” he said. “Part of the beauty of this [NCTA] approach, is it’s basically one app. You comply with the specifications of the HTML5 spec and it’ll run. That’s a beautiful thing.”

The Contour app “bears a striking resemblance” to Comcast’s Xfinity app, Necessary said — Cox is licensing the X1 platform for Contour — and represents a “step up” for Cox customers.

“It links the customer to the full Title VI service; it’s the full megillah,” Necessary said. There’s one execption, though: Customers are not allowed to purchase transactional video-on-demand movies or shows through the Contour app.

That’s because Apple requires a “pretty steep” fee for any such purchase made through an iOS app, Necessary said. While the same doesn’t hold true for Android, Cox disabled that feature on the Android app to lessen confusion.

“We didn’t want customers to have a different experience based on the platform,” Necessary said.

But Necessary doesn’t see set-tops disappearing anytime soon. That makes sense, as Comcast and Charter are investing large sums in their respective new box platforms — Comcast has said it expects X1 to achieve 50% penetration of its 22 million customers by the end of the year and rolled out 855,000 X1 boxes in Q2 alone. That investment wouldn’t be abandoned immediately, even in the face of onerous regulations.

EVOLUTION, NOT REVOLUTION

“It won’t be abrupt,” Necessary said. “If it necessitates buying a new TV in order for that app to work, TVs have a life cycle. What we would expect to see is a gradual erosion of the market. It’s going to take a while before the market is materially affected.”

That could take as long as five years, Necessary said. In its ditch the box proposal, the NCTA estimated it would take at least two years for new technology to be implemented.

While there is a movement to consolidate entertainment and service apps into a one-stop shop for consumers, Necessary said that is not the path Cox plans to take. In Cox’s research, service and entertainment rarely overlap, he said.

“We have consciously said it’s two different experiences; we’ll have two different apps,” Necessary said. “That’s the logic behind it.”

Dish Network director of advanced video products Mitch Weinraub said he too prefers to keep entertainment and service functions separate. The satellite- TV service provider offers the Dish Anywhere app for content and the MyDish.com website for customer service issues.

“That’s to not get in their way when what they really want to do is watch content,” Weinraub said. “The right place to do things like upgrades and downgrades is probably on the set-top box. Why bring in another device, log into another service, go through another path?

“Going forward, we believe there is a right answer there, and that is to let the customer adjust their content where they consume their content.”

With Cox Connect, customers can access the typical customer-service functions: They can upgrade or downgrade service levels, schedule appointments and track technicians. Earlier this month, Cox added a My WiFi feature to the app that helps customers find WiFi hotspots in their area.

About two-thirds of Cox’s customer base accesses at least one of those service capabilities via the Web or the app each month, Necessary said.

“It tells you about the appetite for having digital interactions from a service and support perspective,” he added.

Earlier this month, Cox added another feature to the support app — My WiFi — that gives customers insights into their WiFi service including performance metrics, signal strength and SSID numbers.

“An ever-increasing number of our customers would rather interact mobile-first rather than call or stop by one of our stores,” Necessary said. “It’s just a lot easier.”

It also adds significantly to an operator’s customer service reputation. In the past three years, Necessary said, Cox has seen about a 15-point swing in its Net Promoter scores associated with the digital service.

“It’s a pretty telling measure,” Necessary said. Apps “are one more way to serve your customer in the way they want to be served.”

HIDDEN COSTS

But there is a cost involved in switching to app-based delivery, mainly in converting plant to IP. That’s something the larger cable operators are already doing to an extent, but it presents a roadblock to smaller operators.

The National Cable Television Cooperative, a programming and equipment-buying group for small cable companies, has been trying to assist in IP conversion and is encouraging eff orts to move towards apps.

NCTC president and CEO Rich Fickle said the organization has been very supportive of members’ app endeavors, and has also started initiatives to help them move to an IP-based infrastructure, another building block in moving toward delivering content via apps.

“OTT and TV Everywhere apps are through the startup phase and appear to be working well for certain devices and content, [but] apps for mainstream TV viewing including highly watched linear are still challenged and may not be ready for the most highly viewed channels on TV in scale but it will eventually happen,” Fickle said.

The main roadblocks, he said, include network loading/quality-of-service management, variations in device processing and memory capabilities, provisioning of localized content alongside national content and variations in supported security and encoding technologies. In the meantime, Fickle said, some set-top boxes might still be needed for a period for many consumers that watch popular content on large screens.

The NCTC continues to be supportive of more innovation in this area. It is encouraging companies to work with the co-op to unlock new benefits such as a seamless multiscreen experience; advanced advertising; near real- time feedback on user experience, features and content; the ability to quickly test new features and content; and flexible packaging based on local viewership data, Fickle said.

But for many smaller operators, apps are more of a vehicle to drive better customer service than deliver content. While many small cable companies have developed their own video content apps, several are opting to leave the entertainment side to TiVo, which agreed to be purchased by Rovi in April for $1.1 billion. TiVo’s app offers a robust feature set including VOD, DVR programmability, and live TV viewing through its own authenticated TiVo app.

At least for now, Mediacom Communications’s app focus will be on customer service, senior vice president, customer service and financial operations Tapan Dandnaik said.

About 288,000 Mediacom customers, or around 20% of its subscriber base, have downloaded Mediacom Connect, the mid-sized operator’s customer service app. For content, Mediacom uses the TiVo app, Dandnaik said.

Mediacom Connect currently allows customers to manage their account, pay their bill and troubleshoot service issues, but the operator has big plans for the app in the near future. It plans to allow customers to track their technician’s location before a service call in the manner of the Uber car-hailing app, and to allow a CSR to activate the camera on a customer’s smartphone to take photos of a problem or engage in a video chat with subscribers to walk them through a solution.

Dandnaik said that while app-based delivery of content is an interesting concept, for some the added cost of converting to an IP-based network isn’t worth the trouble today.

“It all comes down to what is preferred by the customer,” Dandnaik said. “Older customers prefer watching TV traditionally, passively and on a TV screen. Younger viewers are looking at stuff on demand, they watch shows on the go. Anyone can see using apps is more for younger customers. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

SLINGIN’ DISH

For other providers, the set-top is an integral part of the app viewing experience. For satellite-TV providers, some type of receiver is needed to accept signals from the dish. But that hasn’t hampered mobility.

AT&T’s DirecTV is planning to launch an OTT service, dubbed DirecTV Now, later this year. For Dish Network subscribers, the promise of a fully mobile TV package is reality through its Dish Anywhere app and its Slingbox-enabled Hopper 2 or Hopper 3 set-tops. Using the Slingbox that is integrated into the set-top, Dish Anywhere customers can access live and on-demand content and can download shows for later consumption.

Unlike other MVPDs that are constrained by rights issues, Dish customers using the Slingbox can access any and all the content they pay for anywhere they can get a wireless signal, as long as their home set-top is powered up.

Weinraub, who runs the team that manages Dish Anywhere, wouldn’t say how many customers have downloaded the app or use it regularly, but he said it is growing in popularity.

“The reason it is growing is that we have more and more customers with those boxes that are capable of doing that with the Hopper 2 and the Hopper 3,” Weinraub said. “As that audience grows, obviously, there are more people that can take full advantage of the unique capabilities that Dish has.

“As they start to understand it, they may download the app to a device and use it for a specific purpose and then they will realize what they have access to,” he said. “Then they become very regular users.”

This story was edited on Aug. 30 to correct an error: Rovi, which is buying TiVo, does not own Roku.

Fox Sports Go, Fox Sports's authenticated TV Everywhere app supporting multiple live network feeds, has launched on the new, fourth-generation Apple TV.

Alongside access to Fox Sports, FS1, Fox Sports Regional Networks, Fox College Sports, Fox Deportes and Fox Soccer Plus, the app for Apple TV also comes with some new features, including streaming at 60 frames-per-second and a Multiview mode that lets viewers watch four Fox Sports live feeds simultaneously.

Apple TV announced it would add support for Fox Sports Go in June at Apple’s Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). 

Fox Sports Go also supports the iOS and Android mobile devices, the Amazon Fire TV, Windows Phone,  Android TV devices, Web browsers and Roku players.

Fox Sports estimates that the app is supported by MVPDs serving more than 95 million people in the U.S. 

Read more of our INTX 2016 coverage.

BOSTON -- Reports of the death of TV everywhere are greatly exaggerated, executives from Comcast, CTAM, Disney-ABC and Viacom said at an Imagine Park session late on Monday.

“Today, thousands of hours of content is available live, on-demand, and streamed, on your choice of hundreds of apps, across a dozen or more devices -- oh, and it’s free with your pay-TV subscription,” Anne Cowan, senior vice president of communications and marketing for CTAM, said. “We need a lot more love for this experience. Just sayin’.”

The real story about TVE is studded with telling numbers: Double-digit growth in TVE viewing in the first quarter; 84% of frequent TVE users say it’s a reason they’ll stay with their provider for another year; adoption of TVE grew by 36% amongst pay-TV subscribers in the U.S.

Comcast’s Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are a whopping 29 points higher amongst partakers in Xfinity TV Everywhere, said Vito Forlenza, senior director of TV everywhere content and product strategy. “When we saw that, we knew were onto something -- that it was time to double-down.”

Comcast launched its TVE product in 2011 with 45 on-demand titles. Now, on-demand, live and linear content is streaming across 18 devices, with 115 linear networks (and 150 by year end) available in the home, or outside of the home. 

Under a marketing tagline of “if it’s on TV, it’s in your hands,” some 40% of its total video base is using the service, every quarter.

ESPN, which recently added live streaming and personalized notifications (from final scores to in-game highlights) to its app, is averaging 7 million unique devices per month, which is about 30% growth per month, said Julius Lee, senior director of affiliate partnership development and operations for Disney and ESPN Networks.

“We know that fans are accustomed to coming to the ESPN app to check the latest scores, highlights and news -- now they can live stream, too,” Lee said. On its “bread and butter” college football genre, usage (measured in minutes of viewing) is up 72%; in the football nailbiter between Clemson and Alabama, fans watched via the app for 140 million total minutes viewed (a 32% increase), on 2 million unique devices (a 38% lift.)

Some 26 million Nickelodeon fans downloaded the app, and usage is more than doubling, year over year, said Andrew Borak, vice president of marketing in the Viacom Media Networks Content division. At MTV, he said, average monthly downloads are up 54%, and monthly streams are up 84%, year over year. “This past month we hit an all-time high for authentication.”

Now all that’s left is to tackle the remaining barriers. On that list, and based on research conducted by Hub Research, for CTAM: A lack of understanding (54%), a lack of awareness that even exists (53%), an assumption that it costs extra (51%).

“There’s an art and a science to breaking down barriers,” Borak said. “The art is how to use the right language -- how to say it’s free, without saying ‘free.’”

The science is the blending of traditional audience research with consumer insights from specific audiences.

Nickelodeon, for instance, unleashes kids aged 8-12 into a design lab, with instructions to create the “ideal TVE experience.” That effort identified the graphical icon of the lock and the key as the biggest barriers. “They think they have to do something to unlock it, like with a game."

(This article was updated on to correct the number of Nickelodeon fans that downloaded the app and how many minutes viewers logged on the ESPN app for the Clemson-Alabama football game.)

The past decade’s promise of digital convergence is manifesting in live streaming of major sports events attracting record audiences via smartphones, tablets, game consoles and PCs.

Consumers are taking advantage of TV everywhere and OTT streaming services that sports leagues and networks offer in increasing numbers, with mobile views augmenting the longer established out-of-market pay TV offerings.

“League Pass continues to grow, even as we introduced new packages,” David Denenberg, the National Basketball Association’s senior vice president of global media distribution, business affairs, told Multichannel News. “We’re focused on serving our fans no matter what platform they have with them.”

Full-season subscription-TV packages like NBA League Pass, Major League Baseball’s MLB.TV and the National Hockey League’s NHL GameCenter Live serve transplanted sports enthusiasts in out-of-market locations who want to keep following their hometown teams.

Digital extensions from the leagues have bolstered those services, leagues said. The NBA this season even added single-game pay streams. (The leagues won’t divulge the number of digital subscriptions, other than they’ve increased steadily.)

League and network officials don’t seem especially concerned about business-model-busting moves such as the live-streaming deal Twitter reached with the National Football League to stream 10 free games from its Thursday Night Football package.

“I have a hard time thinking that the best way to stream content to the masses is digital-only product,” said Rick Cordella, NBC Sports Group senior vice president and general manager, digital media. “There’s no power like broadcast television. We’re not going to make our content freely available.”

When NBC streamed in 2008 for the first time the Olympic Games, in Beijing, “We took a very cautious approach,” Cordella said. “The biggest fear initially was cannibalization: instead of people watching on a big screen TV on the wall, they would then watch on an iPhone or a desktop computer. Really that’s never the case.”

For NBC, the key to streaming live is authentication; users must prove they’re either a cable or satellite subscriber. “We’re part of the ecosystem, a larger machine. We think it’s the right model,” Cordella said.

That goes for anything that NBC broadcasts over the air, as well as NBCSN, the Golf Channel and regional sports networks, such as local NBA games, and NBC’s partnership with Telemundo’s Deportes, totalling 7,000-8,000 hours of content a year, not including the Olympics, which is another 4,500 hours. In mid-April, the first week of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Playoffs scored for NBC Sports an 84% bigger digital audience than last year, Cordella said.

“Digital streaming attracts young affluent males who are tech-savvy and forward leaning: an attractive demographic to reach for advertisers,” Cordella said, adding that digital has its own ad load often with different creative even though they might be some of the same advertisers on-air. “In some case [advertisers] pay a premium to reach it.”

Livestream growth also is evident in other sports, such as soccer, golf and tennis.

The NeuLion-powered Major League Soccer service, MLS Live, grew its subscription base by 60% in 2015, according to Chris Wagner, executive vice president and co-founder of NeuLion.

NeuLion overall delivered OTT 63,000 live sports streams in 2015 and 30% higher video traffic than the previous year, Wagner said.

The new OTT product Univision Now, directed at 57 million Spanish U.S.-based speakers, expects digital traffic this June for the 32-match Copa America Centenario soccer tournament, involving national teams from North America and South America to be a bigger streaming deal than the 2014 FIFA World Cup was for Univision, he said.

“TV is still going to have the majority of [all sports] audiences,” Wagner said.

But digital is making inroads.

SIDEBAR: Sports Streaming Milestones

• Viewers of CBS Sports’s live stream of Super Bowl 50 consumed more than 402 million total minutes of coverage across laptops, desktops, tablets, connected TV devices and mobile phones, watching for more than 101 minutes each on average. During the game window, viewers consumed more than 315 million minutes of coverage, with an average minute audience of 1.4 million.

• NBA League Pass, the NBA’s live out-of-market subscription package, delivered a record 27 million video views and 1.2 billion total minutes viewed during the 2015-16 regular season. Globally, NBA.com and the NBA app netted a record 9.1 billion video views this season, up 160% over last year, and 3 billion visits, for a 27% year-over-year increase.

• This year’s NCAA March Madness Live, managed by Turner, garnered 73.5 million live streams and 18.1 million hours of live video consumption. When comparing this year with 2010, live streaming is up 84% and hours of live video consumption are up 54%.

• MLB Advanced Media’s At Bat app in 2015 established record levels of engagement including 13.1 million downloads (+21% YOY), 1.7 billion app starts (+40% YOY) and 8.4 billion minutes.

• WrestleMania 32-related content garnered more than 250 million video views across WWE.com, the WWE app and social media, (+122% YOY), setting a data traffic record of 8.6 TB on the AT&T network.

• Golf Channel Digital achieved its best week ever with The Masters from April 7–10, 2016 for total video starts (3.2 million) and total unique users (4 million). Additionally, Golf Live Extra saw a 23% increase in streaming coverage over 2015 for Golf Central Live From The Masters coverage, the best ever for Masters Week.

•CSN Bay Area Digital set a network record with 3.19 million minutes streamed for the historic 73rd regular-season Golden State Warriors win over the Memphis Grizzlies, surpassing the previous high, last Sunday’s Warriors-San Antonio Spurs game (3.15 million minutes streamed). For the full season, fans consumed 96.1 million minutes on CSNBayArea.com and via NBC Sports Live Extra (through 70 games), up 443% compared to the 2014-15 championship season.

• The NBC Sports section of Yahoo Sports delivered 3.5 million minutes in March, up 30% over March 2015, according to multiplatform data released by comScore.

Bravo and E! are the latest networks from the NBCUniversal stable to launch apps for Roku players and integrated Roku TVs, marking an expansion of NBCU’s TV Everywhere efforts.

Those authenticated apps – Bravo Now and E! Now – allow pay TV subs to stream full seasons of shows from those networks, as well as current and past episodes of a variety of originals.

On the Bravo end, that includes Vanderpump Rules, Top Chef, The Real Housewives franchise, and, starting this fall, the ability to catch up on Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.

On E! Now, the app offers access to series and shows such as Total Divas, I Am Cait, and Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry. Keeping Up with the Kardashians will be available to Roku users soon after its April launch, and season four of Rich Kids of Beverly Hills will be available in early May.

“Bravo Now and E! Now offer passionate fans some of the best – and undeniably most addictive – programming wherever and whenever they want, and we’re happy to make it available to Roku customers,” said Dina Juliano, NBCU’s SVP of consumer product strategy, TV Everywhere, said in a statement. “This launch underscores our commitment to enhancing the digital experience for our networks’ subscribers and further connecting audiences with NBCUniversal’s beloved TV brands.”

Other NBCU brands and channels with apps on Roku include NBC, NBC News, USA, NBCSN, and CNBC.

Authenticated TV everywhere services are driving higher customer satisfaction for pay TV providers and serving as an effective-churn buster, but awareness issues — specifically consumer misconceptions about extra costs — have stymied the multiscreen offerings.

Those are the key findings from Hub Entertainment Research’s annual TVE study, based on a survey of 1,202 U.S. TV viewers with broadband service.

On a positive note, 73% of respondents said TVE drives higher satisfaction, and 84% of frequent TVE users said they plan to stick with their current provider for the next year, vs. 66% of consumers who don’t use the authenticated platform.

Despite that, 53% of users said that not only have they never used TV everywhere, but they weren’t even aware they could access it. And though TVE platforms are part of a monthly subscription, more than half of respondents (54%) assumed there were extra costs.

As festival-goers gather, Turner Classic Movies has a new mobile app to serve as a digital companion for attendees of its vintage film event in Tinseltown.

Supporting the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood from March 26 through March 29, the new mobile app is available for IOS and Android devices and can be downloaded free from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

The TCM Classic Film Festival app sports a new platform and enhanced features. Among the elements: dynamic, in-depth film guide and screening schedule;  Festival 101, news, and up-to-date announcements;  alerts and reminders to screening times,special events and TBAs; a customizable My Schedule feature; profiles of special guest attendees; photo galleries from the event; venue maps and Club TCM schedules.

There are also daily video recaps and the ability to follow TCM’s Facebook and Twitter posts and festival events.

The app can also be synched across multiple iOS devices, enabling users to move between their iPhone and see same information on their iPad.

“At TCM, it’s our mission to share and celebrate the entire spectrum of film history with an engaged and growing community of movie lovers,” said network general manager Jennifer Dorian.  “New technologies like our brand new festival app make it easier than ever for TCM to rally movie lovers, share films and context, socialize around movies and customize our offerings.”

While app users can enjoy the festival vicariously, those attending the event in Hollywood have other things to enjoy beyond the various screens, panels and parties.  

Throughout the weekend, TCM invites guests to visit the #HeartMovies video booth in the lobby of the Chinese Multiplex. There, they can create a personal “video memoir” discussing the moment that inspired their lifelong love of movies. After recording their special two-minute movie memory, they receive a link to the video to share with TCM and friends on social media. 

For the first time, TCM is inviting more than 20 digital and social influencers to execute self-selected  social assignments—from live tweets of red carpet happenings to "man on the street" interviews and produced "notable quotable" gifs highlighting the most interesting comments made by Festival special guests.   

These efforts are designed to capture the general festival atmosphere and specific highlights from nearly all screenings and events, and will include links to the Festival website for those who want more information on the films themselves.  

TCM is also using its sixth annual event in Tinseltown to demonstrate its robust TV Everywhere offering.

Watch TCM ambassadors will be at the Chinese Multiplex to demo the WatchTCM app—its various viewing features, deep editorial content, video and image galleries—for festival attendees waiting in queues for screenings.  

After demonstrating the app, the ambassadors will distribute beautifully collectible cards (pictured), showcasing special key art on the front and useful data and user tips for the WatchTCM app on the rear.

For those who aren’t making the trek to Tinseltown for the TCM Classic Film Festival, the network is providing vintage film fans with ways to be part of the fun via a multiplatform on-demand promotion.

Staring March 25 and running through the end of April, TCM is making a host of films and related content available via TV Everywhere platforms, the Watch TCM app and through set-top boxes. The robust content promotion offering is available to all of TCM's TV Everywhere distribution partners.

The 2015 festival, TCM's sixth annual, is set to take place Thursday, March 26 through Sunday, March 29 in Hollywood.

In addition to running banner ads touting the promotion on TVE sites, TCM has also created a social media toolkit for affiliate partners to help trumpet the on-demand offering, with copy for Facebook and Twitter, plus artwork from select films.

“While we celebrate classic film, we achieve that mission though using the newest platforms and technology,” said TCM general manager Jennifer Dorian. “Our very popular TV Everywhere app Watch TCM and VOD are leading examples of how a media brand can forge deeper engagement with passionate fans and grow reach via new platforms.”

Authenticated TCM viewers will be able to check out “Live From the TCM Film Festival” specials, featuring tributes to Alan Arkin, Eva Marie Saint and Luise Rainer, as well as Robert Osborne’s 20th Anniversary Tribute that was filmed during last year’s festival.

Among the films screening at the 2015 event that will be available on demand: The Apartment, Lawrence of Arabia, Marriage Italian Style and The Miracle Worker. 

Other classics that have run at festivals past and will be available include Le Mans and A Hard Day’s Night.

Those traipsing in Tinseltown and new to the Watch TCM app can find out how to utilize it at the Chinese Multiplex, where on-site ambassadors will demonstrate its viewing features, video and image galleries and flanking editorial content.

After exhibiting the app,  the ambassadors will distribute collectible cards featuring special key art on the front and useful data and user tips for the WatchTCM app on the back

The field of 68 has been set -- First Four action tips tonight -- and NCAA March Madness Live is available to nearly 100 million pay video subscribers via TV Everywhere access throughout the event.

All 67 games of the 2015 tourney – Kentucky is seeking to become the first men’s basketball team to go undefeated since Indiana accomplished the feat during the 1975-76 season – plus a wealth of content, including archival and 2015 tournament highlights can be streamed over this year’s enhanced version of the NCAA March Madness Live app. Developed in partnership with Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA, the platform can be accessed from www.ncaa.com/marchmadness, www.CBSSports.com, www.bleacherreport.com, CBS Sports App, Bleacher Report’s Team Stream, the App Store, the Amazon App Store, Windows Store and Google Play. 

Although the 22 contests airing on CBS, including the national championship game on April 6 from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, are accessible to all, the remaining contests, including the national semifinals on April 4, air on Turner Broadcasting-owned services TBS, TNT and truTV. 

Subscribers can gain TV Everywhere access to the contests and content on computers, laptops, tablets and mobile devices by verifying their video subscriptions.

Turner has one of the most robust TVE offerings among the nation’s programmers with deals covering 86 million homes. That total reaches the 99 million mark or thereabouts with the addition of Time Warner Cable subscribers, as Turner has once again reached an interim agreement with the nation’s second-largest MSO during the Madness of March (and early April).

“TV Everywhere continues to be one of the most important initiatives in our industry,” said Coleman Breland, president of Turner Network Sales, the domestic distribution, sales and marketing arm of Turner Broadcasting System. “Offering our content to viewers wherever and whenever is an incredible value to both the consumers and importantly, to our distribution partners.”

Heading into the 2014 tournament, Turner Broadcasting counted 160 distribution partners for TVE that reached some 85 million homes. Over the course of the past year, Turner’s TVE platform has rolled out on a number of smaller distributors, via its master agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative, and its TVE footprint now extends to 320 affiliates and over 86 million homes.

“It’s imperative that we not only continue to offer these on-demand services but that we create robust, companion viewing experiences like March Madness live which enhances the TV experience for consumers while providing added value to their existing TV subscription,” said Coleman.

With the expanded footprint and consumers’ increasingly familiarity with TVE, tentpole events like March Madness and the Olympics are key authentication drivers.

Like last year, users will once again have a three-hour preview per device before they must authenticate their subscriptions. Turner Broadcasting will regularly run messaging encouraging verification during those periods.

As such, Turner Broadcasting officials are optimistic that sign-up will grow and stoke NCAA March Madness Live usage.

Last year, NCAA March Madness Live generated a record 69.7 million live video streams, a 42% jump from the 2013 event, according to Conviva data. All told, there was a record 15 million hours of live video streaming, 7% more than the prior year.  Much of the growth came via mobile – tablets and smartphones – as streams leaped 71% on these devices during the tourney NCAA tournament, with streaming hours surging 38%.

Those who logged on via TVE were much more engaged with the content.  According to Turner officials citing Conviva data, TVE users streamed an average of 67% more minutes than those who weren’t logged in.  Live streams on logged-in mobile devices accounted for 52% of TVE play during the 2014 tournament.

Overall, TVE usages for last year’s version of March Madness climbed 85% in live streams and 72% in hours spent viewing.

Those gains have once again led to NCAA March Madness Live selling out its inventory for the 2015 event. NCAA corporate champions AT&T, Capital One and Coke Zero are the co-presenting sponsors of the platform.

Moreover, Buick, Capital One and Coke Zero are sponsoring the app for iPhone and iPad, while AT&T, Capital One and Infiniti are backing the Android version. AT&T is also the presenting sponsor for the Windows app. Buick, Infiniti and LG Electronics are NCAA corporate partners.

“Our TV Everywhere strategy is designed to confront the challenges of an evolving media universe and have the ability to deliver branded video content that can be enjoyed anytime, anywhere and on any device by consumers,” said Coleman, “while also meeting the business needs of our advertising and distribution partners.”

Looking to build on the record performance from a year ago, Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA are rolling out an enhanced version of streaming platform NCAA March Madness Live.

The completely redesigned app showcases a sleeker design, improved navigation, a greater emphasis on social media, an all-new GameCenter experience and a new “run” game. There are also new sections focused on providing fans with more content on the tournament and this year's 68 combatants than ever before.

From Selection Sunday on March 15 to the national championship game in Indianapolis on April 6, users will be able to watch all of the action via March Madness Live accessible from www.ncaa.com/marchmadness, www.CBSSports.com, www.bleacherreport.com, CBS Sports App, Bleacher Report’s Team Stream, the App Store, the Amazon App Store, Windows Store and Google Play on Thursday, March 12. 

The 2014 version of March Madness Live netted a record 69.7 million live video streams, totaling over 15 million hours of consumed live video. Executives expect those figures to be eclipsed this go-round given the enhanced system, additional content and the nation's growing TV Everywhere uptake.

“It’s much more of a companion experience. There is improved discoverability when watching live game video,” said Hania Poole, senior director, product management and operations at March Madness Live, at NCAA Media Day in Manhattan on March 10.

Poole said this year’s enhanced platforms more facilely melds live game streaming, with archival video, tournament-field-tied rankings and statistics (pictured), plus social networking elements.

"The varied elements are more seamlessly integrated this year."  In the past, users had to “swipe away” from the live game streaming to view the other content, Poole said.

At the same time, those only interested in the action can maximize the screen and focus on the ballgame, she demonstrated during Media Day.  

Poole also pointed out that Buick is back for sophomore season as sponsor of the sometimes essential “boss button,” whether the authority figure hovers at work, in the classroom, or at home. To that end, she showed how NCAA March Madness Live now offers spread sheet, student notes and general search facings to assist the user in avoiding platform detection when they should be attending to what some may deem to be more important matters.

As has been the case, the CBS contests are available for all to stream.  However, authentication is required for the games airing on TNT, TBS and truTV. Poole said Turner will once again encourage TV Everywhere sign-up with messaging that will appear during preview periods: three-hour windows are available per device.

On the ad sales side, officials say the inventory is sold out. NCAA Corporate Champions AT&T, Capital One and Coke Zero are the co-presenting sponsors of the platform. As mentioned, Buick is in the game with the Boss button, as well as with Capital One and Coke Zero as thel sponsors of the NCAA March Madness Live App for iPhone and iPad, For their part, AT&T, Capital One and Infiniti are supporting the Android app. The telco will also serve as presenting sponsor for the Windows app. Buick, Infiniti and LG Electronics are NCAA Corporate Partners.

The following are the partners’ descriptions of some of the new key components of NCAA March Madness Live

*“Teams” Section – The new teams section allows fans to follow their favorite team throughout the tournament with stats, video content, a season recap/snapshot, team roster and information outlining upcoming tournament match-ups.

*“Featured” Section – For the first time, fans will be able to view content that captures the story lines  classic tournament moments, match-up analysis, top plays, press conference coverage, featured video content and more.

*GameCenter – The epicenter of NCAA March Madness Live has been reengineered to give fans more ways to watch live games on smartphones - allowing video viewing in both portrait and landscape orientations.  In addition, companion content on smartphones and tablets, such as team and player stats and social content from the Coke Zero NCAA March Madness Social Arena, is more dynamic and more discoverable than ever before.

*Capital One NCAA Tournament Run– A new game available at ncaa.com/tournamentrun that allows fans to stay competitive in the tournament after a busted bracket. To play, users must answer questions about each game match-up throughout the tournament to accumulate points and create the longest “run.”

*Capital One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge – This year, the official bracket game of March Madness – available via desktop, smartphones and tablets – is upgrading with new game features and more tools to help fans make their bracket picks.  In addition, this is the only bracket game to integrate access to the live video stream of every match-up during the tournament. 

NBC Sports Regional Networks are scoring significant gains during their first season of NBA live in-market streaming.

Six of the branded Comcast SportsNet services have seen their collective total of live-streamed  minutes leap 122% since tipping their authenticated, TV Everywhere services with the start of the 2014-15 NBA season.

According to Adobe Analytics, the six RSNs – CSN Bay Area (Golden State Warriors), CSN Mid-Atlantic (Washington Wizards), CSN Philadelphia (Sixers), CSN California (Sacramento Kings), CSN Chicago (Bulls) and CSN New England (Boston Celtics) – collectively streamed 3.1 million cumulative minutes watched in their attendant local markets in November. That total grew to 4.6 million in December and 6.9 million in January.

NBC Sports Regional Networks have TVE deals with 11 distributors, including parent Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and AT&T U-verse. The NBA telecasts are available at no extra cost to authenticated video customer who can stream their teams both inside and outside the home on smart phones, computers and tablets. Monetizing the TVE platform, the company is dynamically inserting a different set of ads into the stream, rather than those appearing on the linear telecasts.

The RSNs also have experienced growth trends with other key streaming metrics since the beginning of the campaign.. The number of live starts in November, when the application was initially introduced, totaled 133,000, before increasing 32% to 175,000 in December and another 42% rise to 247,000 last month.

Relative to total visits, the rookie streaming service has seen its monthly total nearly double since launch -- 81,000 in November to more than 158,000 in January.     

No doubt reflective in part to the clubs’ performance on the court,, Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, Comcast SportsNet Chicago and Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic  have seen their total visits, minutes watched and live start figures more than double in January from those netted in November, according to NBC Sports officials.

“We are pleased with these early adoption figures and encouraged by the positive trends surrounding this significant value add for our viewers and distribution partners,” said Jon Litner, group president of NBC Sports Group. “Live sports is among the most compelling content available, and our implementation of TV Everywhere provides subscribers with our award winning coverage—live and in HD—no matter where they are and on whichever device they choose.  We’d like to commend the NBA for working with us to bring this product to basketball fans and advancing this important movement.”

All told, the six Comcast RSNs will make more than 440 NBA games available for in-market streaming throughout the 2014-15 season. 

Although Time Warner Cable SportsNet has been live-streaming Los Angeles Lakers telecssts since it lauched with the start of the 2012-13 NBA campaign, this season marks the first major push for RSN TVE action. All 17 of the Fox Sports Net regional holding NBA rights are now live-streaming the contests in market, while MSG Networks has always debuted a product to simulcast New York Knicks telecasts..

Discovery Communications has inked a multiyear renewal of its distribution agreement with Cablevision Systems Corp.

The new, multiplatform deal allows Cablevision subscribers to enjoy continued access to Discovery’s portfolio of 13 U.S. networks, while providing TV Everywhere rights to the MSO's subs through authentication.

The agreement, financial terms of which were not disclosed, with the New York metro area's predominant provider encompasses Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Science, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, American Heroes Channel, Velocity, Destination America, Discovery Family Channel, Discovery Life Channel, Discovery en Español and Discovery Familia, ensures Cablevision subscribers will have access to their favorite Discovery networks and shows for many years to come.

“Investing in world-class content that satisfies viewers’ curiosity has always been Discovery’s top priority,” said Disocvery Communications president of domestic distribution Eric Phillips. “This renewed agreement speaks to the value of that investment, as well as the track record of success and continued strength of Discovery’s brands. We look forward to continuing our strong partnership with Cablevision and to bringing their subscribers the high-quality, original content they’ve come to expect from our portfolio of networks.”

The pact continues Discovery's recent push toward broadening its reach via TV Everywhere.  Since it inked a comprehensive pact with Time Warner Cable in November 2013, all of Discovery's affiliate agreements have incorporated TVE rights. The programmer, which faces a contract deadline with Comcast this summer, has also scored renewals with Cox Communications, Suddenlink and GCI, through its master agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative.

It was the 2014 Australian Open that ushered in some changes at the top of the men’s and women’s tennis world.

When Ana Ivanovic upset Serena Williams in the round of 16, 2014 began an uneven year for the world No. 1, who also suffered early exits at the French Open and Wimbledon, before she regained her form and captured the U.S. Open. In between, former Slam champions Maria Sharapova  (French) and Petra Kvitova (Wimbledon) added majors, while Simona Halep and Eugenie Bouchard burst onto the scene.

Ivanovic’s victory in Melbourne Park opened the door for Li Na to take home the title. With the Chinese player retiring from the sport, a new woman will be crowned Aussie queen.

Stan Wawrinka beat three-time defending champion Novak Djovokic in the quarterfinals, returning the favor for a marathon loss against the Serb Down Under in 2013. The long-time No. 2 Swiss player then surprised Rafael Nadal to win the championship.

Bookending the year of upsets, Martin Cilic, who will miss the Happy Slam with ani njury, beat the rising Japanese player Kei Nishikora  in the final of the U.S. Open. Wawrinka and Cilic thus joined 2009 U.S. Open king, Juan Martin Del Potro, who also had to withdraw on the eve of the tourney with his lingering left wrist problem, as the only men to interrupt the decade-long Grand Slam domination of the "Big 4": Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray.

This year, world No. 1 Djoker and No. 4 Wawrinka could meet in a semfinal rubber match, while a recovering-from-multiple injuries Nadal might see old foe Roger Federer in the bottom half.

How happy would executives at the worldwide leader be if that form held at the Happy Slam. Starting on Sunday, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m., ESPN 2 and ESPN will combine to present more than 100 live hours on television, while ESPN3 will serve up to 800 more digitally, as fans will be able to choose from action on up to 13 courts.  ESPN’s 31st consecutive Australian Open will culminate with the women’s and men’s championships live on ESPN at 3 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 31, and Sunday, Feb. 1, with an encore presentation Super Bowl morning at 9 a.m.

As part of its Grand Slam alliance with ESPN, Tennis Channel is in the game Down Under for an eighth consecutive year. Tennis Channel will have 11 consecutive days and 40 hours of live coverage. Adding encore replays, highlights, a special preview and the new daily preview show Live at the Australian Open, the network will devote close to 200 hours over the fortnight.

Under their alliance, ESPN produces the Australian Open for both networks, with each utilizing its own commentators and cross-promoting their combined television offerings. Conversely, Tennis handles production when the networks play as a doubles team at Roland Garros.

Unlike many Grand Slams, the 2015 Australian features several intriguing opening-round battles. Nishikora will battle former top 10 player Nicolas Almagro, while Nadal meets the veteran Mikhail Youzny.

Distaff interest will center on the former two-time champion Victoria Azarenka’s encounter with Sloane Stephens, a rematch of their controversial and contentious 2013 semifinal that followed the American's elimination of her idol Williams. By the by, Azarenka, Stephens former world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva, Williams' 2014 French and Wimbledon conquerors Garbine Muguruz and Alize Cornet, plus Jelena Jankovic and Dominica Hantuchova are all in Serena’s part of the draw.

Williams, should she survive her perilous path, could meet friend Caroline Wozniacki -- seeded eighth but suffering from a wrist injury -- in the quarters. A Williams' title would be her 19th singles Slam, surpassing the 18 trophies also held by Chris Evert and Martina Navritilova. Fourth-seeded Kvitova is slated to meet No. 6 Aga Radwanska in the other quarter in the top half of the draw.

The bottom half features the possible confrontation between Halep and Ivanovic, this year’s third and fifth seeds. The last quarter could showcase the telegenic twosome of No. 2 Sharapova and  Bouchard, the comely Canadian, who succumbed to Na in last year’s semis.

On the men’s side, if the seeds hold up, Djokovic would meet No.8  Milos Raonic, the hard-serving Canadian, and Wawrinka would engage his U.S. Open vanquisher, No. 5 Nishikori.

In the bottom half, No. 3 Nadal’s path would take him into No. 7 Tomas Berdych, while the second-seeded Federer might match with No. 6 Murray, who lost to the Swiss in last year’s quarters and the 2010 final and to Djokovic in the 2011 and 2013 championship matches.

Shoule Nole or Fed win they would set the Open era record with five men's Down Under diadems.

ESPN2 tosses the first ball into TV play on Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. (ET) and will present daily, marathon, overnight telecasts from Melbourne, primarily starting at 9 p.m. through the women’s semifinals. At the money end of the tourney, coverage switches to ESPN (see schedule below). WatchESPN, now available to some 75 million homes, will stream all of the action on the two networks to authenticated viewers.

The worldwide leader is bringing its veteran tennis team Down Under: Australians Cliff Drysdale and Darren Cahill; the McEnroe brothers, Patrick and John, and three named Chris: Fowler, Evert and McKendry. Additionally, former players and coaches Pam Shriver, Mary Jo Fernandez, Brad Gilbert and Jason Goodall are scheduled to appear, as will essayist Tom Rinaldi.

As it does with the other majors, Tennis Channel will introduce a review/preview show with this year’s Aussie tourney.

Hosted by Emmy Award winner Brett Haber, Hall of Famers Jim Courier and Navratilova, and Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim  Live at the Australian Open will air most nights from 6 p.m.-7 p.m. immediately preceding the start of the day’s play Down Under. 

The network’s on-air team also includes Bill Macatte, Justin Gimelstob and Lindsey Davenport.

Tennis' schedule calls for 11 consecutive days spanning 40 hours of live coverage at this year’s Australian Open (see schedule). With encore replays, highlights, a special preview and the new Live at the Australian Open, the network plans to present some 200 hours linear hours.

Hybrid digital service, Tennis Channel Plus, combining TVE accessibility and bonus match coverage, will home in on one court during the tournament's second week, streaming the action to its subscriber base.

ESPN AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2015 (all time ET)

Tennis Channel’s Live Australian Open Coverage (all times ET)

Date                                                    Time                           Event                                                 

Sunday, Jan. 18                                   6 p.m.-7 p.m.              Pre-Tournament Welcome

Monday, Jan. 19                                 6 p.m.-9 p.m.              FirstRound

Tuesday, Jan. 20                                 6 p.m.-9 p.m.              SecondRound

Wednesday, Jan. 21                            6p.m.-9 p.m.              Second Round

Thursday, Jan. 22                               6 p.m.-11 p.m.              ThirdRound

Friday, Jan. 23                                    6 p.m.-9 p.m.              ThirdRound

Saturday, Jan. 24                                6 p.m.-9 p.m.              Round of 16

Sunday, Jan. 25                                   6 p.m.-9 p.m.              Round of 16

Monday, Jan. 26                                 6 p.m.-9 p.m.              Men’s and Women’s Quarterfinals

Tuesday, Jan. 27                                 6 p.m.-9 p.m.              Men’s and Women’s Quarterfinals

Wednesday, Jan. 28                            6p.m.-9:30 p.m.         TBA

Thursday, Jan. 29                               10 p.m.-3:30 a.m.       Mixed Doubles Semifinal, Women’s Doubles Final

Saturday, Jan. 31                                5:30 a.m.-8 a.m.         Men’sDoubles Final

Sunday, Feb. 1                                    12 a.m.-2 a.m.            Mixed Doubles Final

Buckeye CableSystem has launched Tennis Channel as part of a multiyear carriage agreement with the dedicated racquet sports service.

The pact, financial terms of which were not disclosed, came in time for Buckeye HDTV Basic Pak subscribers to watch Tennis Channel's coverage of the 2015 Australian Open both on the linear network, as well as myriad devices via the TV Everywhere component of the agreement. The MSO is offering its customers TV Everywhere access to the network at no additional cost. Subscribers who have the HDTV Basic Pak are able to watch Tennis Channel’s linear coverage stream on the go through a multitude of platforms, including smartphones, tablets and computers from anywhere in the U.S.

“We’re excited to welcome Buckeye viewers back to Tennis Channel in time for the Australian Open,” said senior vice president of distribution Patrck Wilson. “Tennis Channel has 90 percent of the live tennis on U.S. television today, and with TV Everywhere capabilities tennis fans can tune in when, where and how they want to.”

Noted Buckeye chief administration officer Brad Mefferd: “We are happy that Tennis Channel is back on our programming lineup. The network does a great job of covering a sport so many of our customers follow.”

Tennis Channel's Australian Open coverage will be led by Bill Macatee, and feature Lindsay Davenport, Martina Navratilova, Jim Courier, Jon Wertheim, Justin Gimelstob and Brett Haber.

All told, Tennis will present nearly 200 hours of tournament coverage from Down Under, including more than 30 live match hours, 60 hours of encore replays and 12 hours of lead-in show Australian Open Live.

Buckeye served Tennis in the past under the network’s initial National Cable Television Cooperative agreement.

“TV everywhere” is now available in the clouds. Literally.

While U.S. airlines may be cutting back on snacks and free checked bags, there’s one service most are going overboard to deliver: streaming TV entertainment.

Like never before, airlines are launching videostreaming services that use WiFi to deliver major network-TV programming to passengers’ smartphones, tablets and laptops.

This “bring your own device,” or BYOD, model is allowing passengers access to in-flight entertainment on planes that didn’t have it before, and in many cases augmenting existing TV services with on-demand content. And it often provides a higher-quality viewing experience than a passenger would get with an aging, low-resolution seat-back display.

The new wireless streaming services are also being rolled out in lockstep with high-speed Internet access by some international carriers that are just introducing connectivity to their fleets.

Southwest Airlines, for example, has offered a 20-channel live-TV streaming service since mid-2013, available free on passenger devices. Delta Air Lines, which already offers live satellite TV on seat-back displays in many of its large jets, last summer launched free streaming video to passenger-owned devices on smaller regional jets through its “Delta Studio” service.

United Airlines announced in October that it will roll out a similar on-demand streaming service on 200 smaller regional jets through next year. JetBlue Airways in November introduced WiFi-enabled streaming video through its “Fly-Fi Hub” service with on-demand shows from Fox and National Geographic Channel. And both Alaska Airlines and Canadian lowcost carrier WestJet Airlines are rolling out new videostreaming services.

While airlines continue to invest in seat-back displays, particularly for large planes making long flights, streaming video to personal devices is now seen as being good enough to serve as the sole entertainment offering on some flights.

And in-flight streaming on jets is expected to grow as more planes add WiFi connectivity to allow passengers to access the Internet and check email in-flight — while at the same time generating ancillary revenues for the airlines.

“With all of our newer domestic narrow-bodies, we’re looking at personal device entertainment as the primary IFE [in-flight entertainment] option,” Tarek Abdel- Halim, managing director of passenger systems at United, said.

Airline executives said the personal-device model can result in a better viewing experience for passengers. Consumers tend to buy new smartphones or tablets every two years or so; Abdel-Halim said a seat-back screen may be used for 10 to 12 years before being replaced and tends to show wear and tear.

“It’s a more private experience for the passenger, and they’re comfortable with the UI [user interface]; they know how to navigate their own device,” Abdel-Halim said. “So we can have a really premium viewing experience by leveraging the on-board server, which holds a lot of content.” United offers more than 400 free TV movies and TV shows with its streaming service.

“We reach content deals with the studios and try to tailor the offering around our own viewing habits,” he said. “Today, it’s far more of an on-demand world — I want to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it.”

Seat-back TV displays have been around since the late 1980s and are a common feature on wide-body jets. JetBlue first launched DirecTV satellite TV on its planes back in 2000.

But in-flight WiFi is still a relatively new amenity. It is only found on around 3,500 commercial planes at present, with the vast majority in North America.

Analysts estimate that more than 12,000 commercial planes globally have yet to add Internet connectivity, and that the connectivity market itself could eventually grow to more than $2 billion in annual revenues.

“The business is changing pretty dramatically and growing,” said Dave Davis, CEO of Global Eagle Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based firm that licenses in-flight content, makes video-streaming software and provides satellite connectivity to Southwest and a number of international airlines.

While Global Eagle currently licenses content for seat-back displays in more than 4,000 planes, its Internet- connectivity systems are only installed on around 615 planes; 500 of those aircraft also offer streaming video to personal devices. Davis noted that Global Eagle also provides streaming software to airlines using other connectivity vendors, such as Philippines Airlines, which offers streaming video as the primary in-flight entertainment on its wide-body Airbus A-330 jets.

Myriad players serve the in-flight entertainment (IFE) and connectivity markets, including manufacturers of embedded seat-back displays, content service providers (CSPs) who serve as middlemen between programmers and airlines, and providers of connectivity via satellite or terrestrial links.

Most have their foot in the door of the nascent in-flight streaming market. Some of the biggest players include GoGo, an Itaska, Ill.-based company which leads the in-flight connectivity market with over 2,000 planes installed; Global Eagle, which counts media veterans Jeff Sagansky and Harry Sloan as major investors; and ViaSat, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based company which provides high-speed Internet connectivity via Ka-band satellite to JetBlue’s fleet as well as some United planes.

Besides making TV shows and movies available on more flights, streaming should also lower the cost of delivering that programming for airlines. One of the biggest benefits of BYOD in-flight TV to airlines is that it eliminates seat-back display systems and their associated wiring and under-seat boxes. That means significant weight savings, and thus lower fuel costs. Streaming also means lower maintenance costs than embedded displays, which usually can’t be fixed without parking the plane.

The BYOD model also allows passengers to take advantage of connected devices that they are bringing aboard anyway and which often provide a larger, higher-quality display that conventional seat-back systems.

“As airlines look to increase their profit margins, one of the biggest things they do is look at the cost of fuel and the weight of plane,” Elliot Wagner, vice president of international program sales and North America partnerships for Discovery Communications, said. “With streaming, you could theoretically get rid of 90% of the weight of your content system. So we are more than happy to work with these airlines to help them do that.”

As long as airlines and in-flight content service providers deliver the same level of digital rights management [DRM] that Discovery is used to on the ground, said Wagner, the programmer has no problem with streaming in an airline’s cabin.

“As a passenger, I think it’s great,” he added. “I’m bringing my iPad onboard regardless, and in most cases, it’s a better display [than the seat-back model].”

To be sure, streaming video to personal devices at 35,000 feet isn’t exactly the same as doing it on the street or in your living room. While the service is delivered via WiFi, the streaming content delivered within a plane represents more of a “walled garden” than all of the video delivered through the Internet. This is due both to bandwidth constraints and rights issues. As a result, typical “TV everywhere” content that can usually be watched via the Internet on authenticated devices might not always be available in the air.

Piper Jaffray analyst James Marsh, who covers Global Eagle, notes that most in-flight connectivity providers won’t let you access Netflix or other popular streaming sites today.

“Up to now, it’s more of a capacity issue and less of a rights issue,” Marsh said. “Most connectivity players won’t let you stream.”

As in-air bandwidth is expensive, most airlines are focused on using streaming to deliver on-demand movies from onboard servers preloaded with content. GoGo’s streaming product, GoGo Vision, is a good example. Launched in 2011 as a cost-effective add-on to GoGo’s existing WiFi connectivity services, the service is now on more than 1,600 commercial planes, many of which are already equipped with traditional seat-back displays or overhead monitors. GoGo Vision runs off onboard servers stocked with more than 100 movies and TV shows, and can be found anywhere from on regional jets up to large aircraft, where it is often an add-on service to traditional seatback TV.

GoGo Vision is used by most of GoGo’s major U.S. connectivity customers including Delta, American and United, as well as Japan Airlines for domestic flights, and is generally offered under the airline’s branding.

“When we launched connectivity in 2008, we knew there was interest from leisure travelers in watching movies and streaming video through the Internet, but the capacity wasn’t there when we launched,” GoGo spokesman Steve Nolan said. “So we created a product to allow customers to rent movies where it’s not such a bandwidth issue. That was the genesis of it.”

While GoGo hasn’t disclosed the cost of adding connectivity to a plane (analysts peg the cost of terrestrial connectivity at around $100,000 per plane, with satellite connectivity costing two to three times as much), Nolan said that adding GoGo Vision requires only a small incremental investment.

Besides installing a special antenna to receive ground-to-air data, providing connectivity on a plane is similar to installing a Wi-Fi system in a house, Nolan said. Needed equipment includes an onboard server, modem and several wireless access points (WAPs). Movies and TV shows are loaded onto the server while the plane is on the ground through a universal serial bus-based content loading system.

GoGo Vision content is generally offered on a pay-per- view basis, with TV shows selling for $1 and movies for $5.99. (Movies tend to be offered in the same window as DVDs for wireless streaming, not the “early window” that seat-back fare enjoys, though some smaller studios like Magnolia Pictures do offer movies in the early window.) Some airlines offer free fare.

Streaming won’t take over right away — airlines still have plans to improve embedded seatback displays (see sidebar, page 15), which often accompany power outlets for long flights. But even leading seatback vendors like Panasonic Avionics and Thales now have streaming products.

Thales, which provides a variety of technology for the aviation industry including navigation, communication and instrumentation systems, is along with Panasonic Avionics one of the two big vendors of embeddded seatback displays and already counts more than 75 airlines as customers.

In June it bought JetBlue’s LiveTV unit, which provides the live DirecTV seatback service to both JetBlue and United, to bolster its connectivity business.

The French conglomerate is now branching into wireless, in-flight entertainment with Middle Eastern airline Saudia, which is currently installing serverbased Thales systems that will stream on-demand video to passenger devices. Thales is also a partner of GoGo, which is working to improve its connectivity products for both the U.S. and the international markets.

In-Flight HD: Takeoff Still Delayed

While the hottest technology trend in in-flight entertainment may be streaming video to portable devices, that doesn’t mean that airlines are giving up on seat-back displays.

In fact, at the same time Delta announced its new BYOD [bring your own device] streaming service for regional jets last summer, the carrier touted its continued investment in seat-back entertainment. Delta said it would upgrade some 156 domestic narrow-body aircraft with seat-back displays through 2016, adding to the 140 domestic planes already with them. More than 100 new Airbus and Boeing planes are set to be delivered with seat-back displays through 2018, Delta also said.

“Especially for longer-haul planes, such as international routes, there’s always going to be a place for seatback solutions that also provide power as well,” GoGo spokesman Steve Nolan, whose company provides Delta’s streaming service, said. “But the trend is also moving away from that, as there are operational advantages to offering a [streaming] service to passengers who already have a device in their hands. We know from our research that a lot of people walk onto a plane with a WiFi device.”

One way that seat-back displays can stay relevant with passengers is by improving their resolution. Large airlines typically have a long refresh cycle for their IFE displays, as much as 10 to 12 years. So most units today are 480-line progressive standard definition, which pale in comparison to the high-definition displays featured in many of today’s smartphones, tablets and laptops and represent a fraction of the 4K resolution offered by the latest HD consumer sets.

“We have to get to the next generation of monitor, which is 1080p,” Tarek Abdel-Halim, United managing director of passenger systems, said. “The refresh rate of personal devices is always going to be faster, and allow the latest, greatest screen technology to come to PDE [personal-device entertainment].”

In the near term, wireless streaming to personal devices is probably the easiest way to provide HD content in-flight, Elliot Wagner, vice president of international program sales and North America partnerships for Discovery Communications, said.

“If we are able to send a deliverable encoded as an HD fi le, and have it displayed back on a Retina Display on an iPad, that would be ideal,” Wagner said.

One in-flight vendor that remains firmly committed to seat-back displays is Irvine, Calif.-based Lumexis, which said it has taken most of the weight out of the seat-back experience with a new architecture called FTTS, or fiber to the seat. Lumexis’s approach is to run embedded fiber-optic cables directly to each seatback display from a central server, forgoing any terminal units under the seat.

The company uses LED-backlit liquid crystal displays, with smaller economy and business class units (10.1-, 12.1- and 15.2-inch) at 720p resolution and larger (23-inch) first-class units at 1080p. Lumexis VP of sales Jon Norris said the system runs at 40% of the weight of a typical legacy in-seat system.

What’s On-Air Up There

Here’s a sampling of what’s available on a few of the biggest U.S. airlines:

United Airlines

The airline is now rolling out GoGo Vision on 200 two-cabin United Express regional jets, with installation scheduled to be complete by next summer.

By the end of this year, all of United’s domestic planes are scheduled to offer WiFi, plus either seat-back DirecTV service or wireless streaming to personal devices, including iOS and Android devices accessible through United’s mobile app, as well as laptop computers. Close to 200 planes already offer streaming.

While most of its narrow-body fleet has seat-back DirecTV, United’s latest deliveries of 737s do not have seat-back displays. Instead, they are being installed with WiFi connectivity, then streaming video.

United’s streaming service is complimentary, as the airline is using an ad-sponsored approach for personal device entertainment with the Chase Mileage Plus Card as the current sponsor. United managing director of passenger systems Tarek Abdel-Halim said United still characterizes streaming as a beta product and hasn’t aggressively marketed the service. He didn’t provide detailed metrics on usage, but so far United has seen “good uptake,” he said, particularly on the Boeing 777s making long flights across the Pacific.

“Though it’s very early stages, from a domestic fleet point of view, I can’t envision a scenario where we go back to wired seat-back entertainment based on the initial response to PDE [personal device entertainment],” he said.

As the streaming service becomes more commonplace, United plans to ramp up its marketing, and to make connecting to United WiFi and loading up the in-flight portal “look very similar and have common capabilities” across different aircraft , Abdel-Halim added.

Southwest Airlines

Southwest, which introduced on-demand streaming content on its Boeing 737s in February 2013, five months later launched “TV Flies Free,” a 20- channel live TV service sponsored by Dish Network and viewable for free on customer-owned WiFi-capable devices. (Dish’s sponsorship ran through 2014, and the service is now sponsored by Chase and called “Free Live TV Compliments of the Rapid Rewards Credit Card.”) Streaming video is the only form of in-flight entertainment that price-conscious Southwest offers.

While 80% of Southwest’s fleet has Wi-Fi connectivity today, its Boeing 737s had neither Internet access nor in-flight entertainment just five years ago. The satellite-based connectivity system from Global Eagle/ Row 44 uses a Ku-band satellite connection to deliver live video in a “dedicated pipe” alongside Internet data.

The “Free Live TV” lineup includes CNBC, MSNBC, NBC, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, Fox, Fox Sports 1, NFL Network, MLB.com, Golf Channel, Bravo, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, TLC, HGTV, Food Network, CBS, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel and a promotional channel. During football season, NFL Network Red Zone is also available on an a la carte basis for an additional $4.

“TV Flies Free is available gate-to-gate and doesn’t require users to download an app beforehand, which is how most other airlines offer streaming video. The service is simply accessed through a Web browser, though passengers need to provide their email for marketing purposes before they get to watch TV.

While watching live TV through WiFi is free, using WiFi to access the Internet or send email costs $8 per day. Southwest also offers on-demand movies for $5 per title, and smartphone users can enjoy IP-based messaging (either Apple’s iMessage or the platform-agnostic WhatsApp) for $2 per day.

Delta Air Lines

Delta uses a seat-selection technology to give passengers access to a range of free streaming content from GoGo Vision based on the class of ticket a passenger has; the pricier the ticket, the more free content is available.

“It asks you your name and where you’re sitting on the plane, and it serves up content based on where you are,” said GoGo spokesman Steve Nolan of the airborne authentication system. “The further up you are in the plane, the more likely you are to have everything free.”

To use GoGo’s straight connectivity product to surf the Web or check email, passengers must pay standard connectivity fees, which start at $16 for an all-day pass when bought on the ground (and potentially run much higher or lower when bought on-board, depending on the length of the flight).

In Demand has reached a renewal with Zuffa LLC to continue to distribute UFC pay-per-view bouts to more than 50 million households across the U.S., while affording a host of new options for affiliates and consumers.

The multiyear pact, financial terms of which were not disclosed, follows the recent expiration of the parties' contract. The new agreement, coming shortly after UFC 182 (pictured) not only ensures that the UFC's biggest events remain available to residential pay--per-view households, but for the first time affords affiliates electronic sell-through rights of the cards, as well as the ability to proffer subscription service UFC Fight Pass to their authenticated video subscribers. 

In addtion, the deal will see InDemand play a greater role in helping affiliates sell UFC PPV cards to commercial establishments in their territories.

In Demand said it will deliver every UFC PPV event and purchasers will enjoy longer viewership windows via video on demand and TV Everywhere.. In Demand said TVE availability will vary initially, depending on when affiliates add UFC action to the platforms.

All events are offered in both standard- and high-definition formats, plus a separate Spanish-language feed.

“We have been proud to be a part of UFC’s growth from their launch on PPV to their current status as the gold-standard for Mixed Martial Arts, worldwide,' said In Demand executive vice president of proramming and general counsel Michael Berman. "This new deal ensures that we will continue our long-term relationship by not only distributing their core PPV events, but we will also be an intrinsic part of their next generation of growth through subscription and digital ownership of the UFC’s compelling content.”

Noted UFC chief content officer  Marshall Zelaznik:: “It is great to continue our rewarding and long-lasting relationship with In Demand. The ability of UFC to deliver our best and most meaningful fights and events to so many fans in the years to come is great news for our sport, our brand and our partners. This partnership will allow us to continue to be the world’s leading PPV content provider.” 

For upcoming schedules, click here.

Last year, when Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox launched an $80 billion hostile takeover bid for Time Warner Inc., chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes had a simple response: We can do better on our own.

So far, Bewkes and his team have delivered on all counts. In November, Time Warner stock surpassed Murdoch’s $85-per-share bid and, as of Dec. 15, has outperformed every other company in the programming sector, up 22% for the year.

Time Warner didn’t get to this point by making any big acquisitions, nor did Bewkes feel as if the company needed to do so. But his moves to streamline and focus the media behemoth over the past several years have literally changed the game and the landscape for Time Warner and other programmers.

Time Warner’s spinoff of AOL and Time Warner Cable in 2009 and its spin of magazine publisher Time Inc. in 2014 helped transform the parent into a pure-play content company. The move focused Time Warner on its core assets — Warner Bros., the world’s largest movie studio; Turner Broadcasting System, home of iconic channels like TNT, TBS, and CNN; and production arm Warner Bros. Television Group, which has churned out hits for cable and broadcast networks alike.

A revamp of Turner — including laying off about 1,500 workers — is expected to lead the programming juggernaut headfirst into the world of original programming, doubling its content budget to $1 billion by 2018. Bewkes also has embraced technology and new business models — HBO is slated to launch its over-the-top product early next year.

But Bewkes, Multichannel News’s 2014 Executive of the Year, is at heart a cheerleader for the industry to which he has devoted the bulk of his business life. An early proponent of the TV Everywhere concept, the Time Warner chief sees ubiquitous on-demand content available to every subscriber everywhere, on any device and at any time as essential to the future of the industry. And he is willing to put his own content and business on the line to get there.

“It’s time to invest, and we’re going to put our money where our mouth is,” Bewkes said during a recent interview with editor in chief Mark Robichaux and senior finance editor Mike Farrell in his office in the Time Warner Center in New York. An edited transcript follows.

MCN: As you look over the year, a lot of things have happened. How do you think you’ve come out on the other side?

Jeff Bewkes: It was a good year.

MCN: You sound like Frank Sinatra.

JB: It was a very good year. We’ve grown the company 25% a year in terms of earnings per share growth over the last six years. And then [there are] the future prospects of the company. That comes from two things — one is the tremendous buoyancy, health and growth of the television industry globally, essentially the explosion of video and how good it is and how much people like to watch it. And the second is, Time Warner now has the most focused company in terms of video, and we have the biggest scale and the most momentum creatively and financially.

That’s why when we look out and we say we’re [estimating] $4 per share of earnings this year; close to $6 in two years and $8 in 2018 — doubling the earnings of the company — put that together with our position in the video business and add it to our track record, and that’s why it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody that the stock is already in the [$80 range].

We’ve publicly said [that] our growth is going to go up dramatically in the next few years even from these levels.

MCN: But do you think you need a big, game-changing transaction?

JB: No, no. Obviously we don’t. Look at what we’ve done. We’ve given very detailed projections of our business at Warner Bros., at Turner, at HBO, at CNN for the next five years. Clearly, we have gotten to a place that is very advantageous in terms of being focused on the video business that we think is such a great opportunity and having the biggest scale in the business already.

Let’s just go through Time Warner. We have the biggest film studio in the world by slate and distribution. We have the most extensive slate of franchises going out for five years, I think, than any film company has ever put forward.

The other equally large piece of Warner Bros., it’s also the world’s biggest producer of television series and it’s the biggest supplier to all broadcast networks in the United States. And we have the leading supplier relationship with Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC. We’re their No. 1 partner outside of their own production entities.

MCN: Some people might say that Jeff Bewkes hasn’t made a big, game-changing acquisition.

JB: I disagree with the premise. We’ve done numerous game-changing transactions. How about game-changing divestitures? We divested the biggest distribution company that anybody has ever divested and we got the biggest increase in value both at Time Warner Cable and at Time Warner [Inc.].

And by the way, you don’t need a merger from Time Warner Cable to Comcast to get to that value. That company on its own — before the Comcast merger, whether it goes through or not — is the highest gain in stock value of any distribution company in the last six years. Time Warner has itself the highest gain in earnings, in terms of compound growth, and the highest increase in stock value of any large media company as well. So that’s a game-changer.

We took AOL, put it out, and AOL stands very well in terms of how it’s done when it was on its own. Time Inc., the publishing company, is now the world’s biggest independent, publicly traded publishing company. We think it’s in a great position, the stock has done very well, the earnings are on track. So we think those are all game-changers.

I think the idea that the bold things you can do in media come from mergers is wrong. I think the bold thing to do in media is build companies. We have done it by inventing CNN, inventing HBO, inventing TBS, TNT. In the last 10 years, we invented the most successful network [for] 18-34 [year-olds] in the United States, Adult Swim. It’s a huge creative breakthrough network. It’s got the leading numbers among the group. It’s a lot more important that we invented Adult Swim than had we bought The Weather Channel or some other acquisition. I think to focus on acquisitions as though it takes boldness; it doesn’t take boldness to do acquisitions. That’s ridiculous to say that.

MCN: Right now in the industry, there is a debate as to whether we are in a cyclical downturn in ratings because of various factors like technology and measurement, or if are we on the precipice of a big, long decline in TV ratings.

JB: Well, in general, the answer to what will happen in ratings for all of the cable networks depends on what they do. And that’s two things — one is, how good and engaging is the programming, and two, is the programming offered on-demand in a way where the audience, including the younger audience, gets to see what they want and have the control over it so they can see their favorite show on their favorite device, in the time and in the place they want to see it?

It’s not that they [audiences] don’t like the programming that’s on USA and TNT and all the cable channels, it’s that they want it delivered on-demand on a device and method and interface that they can use easily.

We’ve been saying this for a long time, and you can see it in the numbers right now. If you take [TNT’s] The Last Ship, a show that premiered this summer and was a pretty good hit at Turner, and you look at the ratings in subsequent video-on-demand plays, [the ratings are] like two to three times the audience of the first play.

If you look at Game of Thrones or some of the big shows on HBO, you have three-quarters of the audience on VOD. If you look at all the shows and the viewing on subscription VOD broadband-delivered platforms like Amazon and Netflix, most of that viewing is for shows that were on some cable network or broadcast network.

MCN: The networks can’t monetize that as well as TV ratings.

JB: But the point here is … is there some secular increase or decline in the viewing of this television program? And the answer is, it’s going up, not down. If the viewing is going to VOD on broadband it’s still that programming. There is still the interest in that programming. The question is, where is the VOD programming — is it on Hulu Plus, is it on Netflix, where is it?

The answer for every entity out there, whether it’s Netflix or TNT, is it has to be on-demand and it has to have an interface where you can find it and you can use it on whichever device you choose to use it on.

So this is Multichannel News. It couldn’t be the better place for people whose lives have been devoted to this. The important thing is that the programming, all the shows that all of our multichannel companies are making, have never been more popular; they have never had a bigger opportunity in front of them, not just in America but all over the world.

And the thing that has to get done is, it all has to go on-demand. And it has to go on-demand with an interface that can help you, as a viewer, understand and stay attached to the network that brings you your favorite show.

MCN: You were forced to make some painful cuts at Turner. Are you happy with what’s going on there now?

JB: I am happy with all of it. I’m glad you asked that. We put in new management at every one of our companies, whether it’s Richard [Plepler] at HBO or Kevin [Tsujihara] at Warner’s or John [Martin] at Turner. They’ve all known each other for many years. They have all liked each other for many years, they’ve worked together cooperatively for a long, long time. I’ve known all of them for 20 years, and I know how they work, how they work with each other. We have a company now that likes working together, that knows which things they ought to do together and which things they should not.

MCN: HBO made some headlines a few months ago with the announcement of their over-the-top-product, which will be launched with the help of your distribution partners. Does that dilute your control?

JB: What we’re going to do is try to help our distribution partners, but we don’t view that as putting a constraint on us.

We’ve got to find ways to offer HBO — which has always been an a la carte, individual choice — and we want to make it available to all the households. Let’s start with the United States. We don’t want to undermine our current distribution arrangement. We don’t think that is necessary; we don’t think it’s in the interest of consumers to undermine that.

But if we go for a more vigorous offering of HBO, which essentially tries to make HBO video-on-demand, the most powerful version of HBO, available with the best interface to every household in the United States, that doesn’t have to undermine distributors. It’s actually the most powerful marketing bid they can have to further make their video plant and their broadband plant more sustainable and more profitable.

We’re just trying to get everyone to be more robust in doing it and we said very clearly when we announced this change, the real attention should go to the 70 million basic-only subs. They are very strong supporters of the 100-plus channel package.

And from what we can see, looking at all kinds of research, there’s about 15 million at least of the 70 million who are exactly the same in terms of their interest, their geographic location, everything about what they do, they ought to have HBO; they’re natural subscribers for it. They either haven’t been offered it in a way that they’ve found reasonable or they were offered it in a way that was hard to understand, they couldn’t sign up, it had all those things attached to it. And we’re saying look, you ought to offer it to these people because there is a profit in doing that. That’s where the biggest opportunity is.

Now the idea that because they also can get HBO, that maybe they’re going to disconnect the hundreds of channels that they have obviously decided to buy? I don’t think so.

MCN: It makes you wonder if there’s not a natural ceiling on these over-the-top services.

JB: There is not that much indication that there’s a dissatisfaction out in the population with the basic-cable bundle. In fact, it’s a very successful thing. And if you go around the world, not just the United States, you see the same thing. You see ever-higher trends of penetration of multichannel packages.

Everybody wonders, is that somehow going to get impinged on by some over-the-top or broadband thing? That’s not the question. Is it going to be impinged on by video-on-demand if they don’t offer it? And the answer is, what people want is VOD. And they want VOD on the device that they choose.

MCN: And yet a lot of them don’t know that they’ve got that right. How would you rate the industry’s efforts on that front?

JB: It takes no boldness to go merge some company with another company and when the merger is done, nothing has changed. What would take a little boldness is for networks to go out, get the rights and offer their channels on-demand. That would take a little vision and foresight for distributors to take those VOD products that have been offered and make them available to and market them reasonably and put some effort behind it.

MCN: Is TV Everywhere happening fast enough in the industry?

JB: No, obviously, it’s not happening fast enough. It’s really necessary that it happens faster and that the interfaces get better. Every distributor ought to be harnessing multiple sources of consumer interfaces. And I know that the legitimate concern is that somehow the providers, let’s say they’re tech companies that give assistance on these interfaces, might somehow find a way to get into some unholy position with regard to the distributor’s rightful relationship with the customer. But come on, there ought to be a way to do this.

MCN: Do you have an official line on the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger?

JB: If the theory is that more and more video viewers and video content are going to go over broadband, and its currently 10%, as soon as it goes to 20%, it just fully puts traffic on every road and now you’ve got to tack down the broadband system.

How is that broadband plant going to continue to have capital investment for the capacity and the interface that needs to deliver what the consumers are going to demand? It’s got to continue to have competition, returns, capital investment, in order to do that job. And that’s the context in which you have to look at the regulatory review of not just that merger, but everything else, whether it’s net-neutrality policy or all these things.

Consumers ought to have a choice that’s a realistic choice of broadband and video providers. It ought to be a robust set of choices. And that competition ought to be in a way where that industry has enough returns to get the capital to build the 21st century infrastructure that the United States needs to have.

MCN: Some see recent over-the-top offerings as a way for operators to finally break the programming bundle …

JB: From a consumer point of view, consumers don’t want to be offered a set of video channels that is designed by virtue of what channels are owned by [this] company versus [that] company. They want to be offered channels that make sense to them.

When you are offered a bundle of channels that have fewer channels than the larger bundle, are you saving money somehow by doing that? Usually the answer is no.

When you go to us, our channels — TNT, TBS, CNN, Turner Classic Movies, HBO, Cinemax, truTV, Adult Swim — they are all must-carry channels. They are all channels of great interest in very important genres that consumers like. We don’t have any marginal channels. Nor are we planning to put a sub bundle of channels we happen to own into distribution, broadband-only. We don’t see how that’s necessary.

The bundle is a great deal and consumers like it because your wife and your kid and you all like different channels that are in the bundle. And the economics of having all of them there are better than what the economics will be for you as a viewer if you had a subset.

The possible question that might be an exception to that is the sports part, because it’s quite expensive for a highly concentrated part of the bundle that we all know some of the viewers don’t watch.

MCN: What’s the likelihood of that happening?

JB: I don’t know. We’ve got some great and powerful sports, [the] NCAA [men’s college basketball tournament], NBA and MLB, on our Turner channels. We think they perform well on our channels — the ratings are better when they’re on our channels than some of the other channels that they appear on. We have not made any of our channels full sports channels. You wouldn’t say CBS or NBC are sports channels, although you had a decent component of sports on [those] channels.

The takeaway is, consumer demand for video is going up all over the world, not just in the United States. And the reason that’s important is there’s a fair amount of the consumer demand for that video finds its way to the U.S. and English-language production. We have a lot of not-U.S.-produced and not-English language production too. That’s a growth area for us.

But it’s just a very good thing to see a demand for TV and video. It then leads to more resources — money, talent, producers, directors, writers, actors — into that field of TV production to make ever better stuff. We’ve all seen it. You can see it every night on TV. And then third, which is great and somehow we’ve all turned it into a problem, having that ever-better programming be available on video-on-demand makes it that much more powerful and it gives you that much more opportunity to make even more distinctive programming.

MCN: I think there’s a recognition that this is the golden age of television.

JB: It really is. The quality is there. Think of the profitability of all the TV network companies. They are all great, they’re all healthy. That means investment continues, the talent coming in continues, the technological developments are making it much more powerful with VOD and mobile access. That’s all good.

And the economics, once we create the VOD platform for the industry, the economics are fantastic because it’s all fixed cost and with an industry that’s got 90% penetration of its basic product.

This is all good and everybody ought to just remember that. It’s time to invest and we’re going to put our money where our mouth is.

Buoyed by more content and greater consumer awareness, the Cable & Telecommunications Association said eight months into its educational efforts, it is charting significant progress toward its goals of boosting TV everywhere sign-in and usage across the cable industry.

CTAM has launched a consumer awareness communications tentpole initiative, outlining the significant benefits and value proposition of TVE -- an ever-growing collection of programming, across all genres and including live news and sports, at no additional costs to verified viewers -- to a broad audience, using social and earned media channels.

The move comes as Netflix and Amazon continue to add subscribers and other over-the-top providers are joining the fray.

For cable operators, it’s a simple problem with a maddeningly complicated answer: How to let paying subscribers know they already have access to favorite shows on favorite devices?

To fortify a collection of current, approved promotional assets for media placement, CTAM has built a secure e-form that makes it easy for content providers and MSOs to participate.  

The core messaging emphasizes the ease of the sign-in process to verify customer status and clarifies how the content can be accessed earlier than other online and mobile platforms. The communications promote current TVE programs to encourage non- or infrequent users of Apps and websites to learn about how it works and what’s available. The approach brings the platform to life by illustrating the viewing possibilities, which are illustrated with a “You Could Be Watching TV” theme (youcouldbewatching.tv) and #youcouldbewatchingTV hashtag.

“Netflix didn’t invent this. Cable providers are offering a better product, with more diversified programming offering that includes live sports and news, all at no additional costs,” said CTAM president and CEO John Lansing.

Underscoring the drive was  Fox Networks’ “Stream It and Dream It Sweepstakes” promotion that ran last month, touting authenticated streaming apps as FOX NOW, FXNOW, Nat Geo TV, BTN2Go, and FOX Sports GO. The two-week initiative, which also granted non-subscribers a two-hour temporary pass to access the content on Fox Broadcasting,  FX Networks, Fox Sports 1, BTN, regional sports, National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo Wild, sought to drive TVE awareness and usage that also offering participating users/viewers a chance to win $25,000.

The endeavor, aligning with CTAM-led tactics, paid dividends resulting in a unique reach of 3 million and 56 million total impressions, boosting promotional value for Fox Networks and distributors, whose combined bases exceeded 100 million homes, according to the marketing group. 

The outreach is being managed by CTAM and The Lippin Group, which are working toward educating consumers and promoting available TVE content. The results thus far have yielded the placement of TVE streaming highlights in mainstream TV and lifestyle sections in newspapers, including The New York Times and U.S.A. Today..

“We have also gained with influencers and bloggers reaching 25-to-39-year-olds,” said CTAM senior vice president of communications and marketing Anne Cowan. “This is a group that loves to watch online.”

When CTAM initiated its education campaign last April its stated goals were to drive aided awareness of TVE, which was only at a 20% level, to 65% in January, as well as push usage of cable subscribers familiar with the platform to 55%. Through mid-October, a study conducted by Hub Entertainment Research, indicated that aided awareness had climbed to 54% of the survey group, while 49% said they had used TVE to view TV content at least once over the past six months.

Moreover, CTAM wanted 75% of its 23 member companies participating in the TVE space to adopt the sign-in recommendations developed by a steering committee in conjunction with OATC, NCTA, CableLabs, Adobe and member partners. Through mid-October, all CTAM TVE companies are using some to all of the best practices, at an average of 52% overall.

“We set out at the beginning of the year to have a measureable impact on awareness and usage of TV everywhere – and given this unprecedented industry participation and support, we have done just that,” said Gemma Toner, senior vice president of business insights and strategy, Cablevision Systems and CTAM chairwoman.  “This initiative from CTAM, designed to drive usage and awareness among consumers, will help to elevate this product category now and into the future.”

Recent HUB Research showed that 61% of millennials reported that access to TVE services made them feel more positive about the TV provider and 56% said the same about the network they’re watching.    

“TVE users ascribe greater value to their cable packages, with millennials, the most-at-risk group, having the most positive reaction to TVE,” said Lansing.

CTAM isn’t the only group proclaiming TVE’s rising metrics.

Adobe data indicates that authenticated content starts soared 388% in the second quarter, over the corresponding year-earlier period.

Comcast-owned advanced advertising company FreeWheel reported last month that verified viewers leaped 368% year-over-year, with 46% of all video ad views on long-form content (20 minutes or more) and live content coming from behind authentication walls.

Still, CTAM recognizes much more work needs to be done as Netflix and extant players gain more traction, and others are poised to enter the marketplace.

Distributors and networks own TVE brand development aside, the industry will also be working toward improved verification for kids, families and Hispanics. There will also be a CTAM drive toward the development of extending sign-in periods, and having subs secure access across a programmers’ suite of networks. For example, after a user signs in to watch HGTV, she would then have access to the other Scripps Networks Interactive services: Food Network, Cooking Channel, DIY, Travel Channel and Great American Country.

Also on the docket: CTAM will present TVE-focused executive panels at the Television Critics Association (TCA) Winter Tour in January. It also has engaged in a partnership with the NCTA to deploy a pavilion at INTX (formerly The Cable Show), one of five pillars at the industry gathering with and toward further forging excitement about the growth of TVE throughout the entertainment industry. 

A late-summer tentpole consumer event is in the early planning stages.

CTAM’s progress comes as EchoStar is taking stabs at TVE with an ad campaign touting retail sales of its place-shifting Slingbox devices. The creative trades on a made-up coalition called “Can’t Watch Anywhere Pain” or C.W.A.P. tagline, which takes aims at the programming holes in the cable industry’s TVE lineup.

 The officials quickly engaged the challenge. “In my view, [EchoStar] views our TVE as a threat,” said Cowan. Lansing added: “That’s great. Game on.”

With all of its regionals that have team deals now live-streaming NBA games in-market, Fox Sports Net has begun to promote the pro hoops TV Everywhere experience with local marketing activities.  

Fox Sports Wisconsin last week tipped off promotional support for the availability of live-streaming of Milwaukee Bucks contests to authenticated subscribers, according to a Fox Sports spokeswoman. Similarly, Fox Sports Indiana, home to the NBA Pacers, this week will initiate a marketing campaign alerting viewers that they can access streamed simulcasts of the RSN’s coverage at Fox Sports Go.com or through Android or iOS-supported devices. Upon signing on with Fox Sports Go, authenticated subscribers can then watch the NBA team that is available through their pay-TV package. 

After testing the technology with a number of distributors and a handful of clubs last season, all 17 of Fox Sports Net's regional sports networks with NBA team deals are now streaming the contests, as well as pre- and post-game fare, in-market, including YES Network.

As part of the Fox Sports Go offering, the RSN, which televises Brooklyn Nets games, launched the service to Time Warner Cable customers on Oct. 29 with the team's 2014-15 season opener against the Boston Celtics (pictured). Cablevision subscribers gained streaming entry last week. YES is also streaming encores of the team’s telecasts, Nets Magazine, The Michael Kay Show and some college basketball.

Like the other FSN regionals, the YES simulcasts feature commercials from the telecasts themselves. Fox Sports originally included “slates” in the pods. The spokeswoman said the company is working on integrating dynamic ad insertion to the mix, with an eye toward streaming distinct spots during the second half of the season.

The six Comcast SportsNet regionals that have launched NBA in-market streaming are running separate ads from the RSNs’ TV schedules.

MSG Network has announced it will commence streaming New York Knicks games in December. 

DirecTV Sports Networks president Patrick Crumb in a recent interview said his group has reached an agreement with the NBA for in-market streaming, and hopes to offer TVE service for the Utah Jazz and Houston Rockets sometime later this season.

Thus far, Fox Sports has inked NBA TVE deals for its RSNs with Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications, Cox and Cablevision, AT&T U-verse, Suddenlink, Wide Open West and MidContinent Cable. Negotiations continue with other key distributors: Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon FiOS.

The addition of Time Warner Cable has bolstered the TVE streaming presence for a number of NBA teams, including Milwaukee. FSN Wisconsin is now running promos for the service during pre-, post- and in-game Bucks telecasts. Announcements are also delivered over the public address at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, where Fox Sports Girls have also demonstrated how the Fox Sports Go app works.

A similar plan will be executed for the Pacers this week and then be extended to various RSNs over the course of the season, according to the Fox spokeswoman.

TNT and PGA.com are running deep with their coverage of the 32nd PGA Grand Slam of Golf this week

Teeing off from Port Royal Golf Course in Bermuda on Oct. 14 and 15, the event pits the holders of golf's four major championships. This year the field includes Bubba Watson (The Masters), Martin Kaymer (U.S. Open) and Rory McIroy (Open Championship and PGA). And since the world No. 1 captured the last two slams of the year, Jim Furyk, the past major champion and 2008 Grand Slam, has been slected to round out the four-man field.

TNT will provide exclusive coverage on Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and on Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., with the foursome mic'd throughout course play, as well as behind-the-scenes looks from Bermuda. The network's coverage features announcersBrian Anderson (play-by-play) and Ian Baker-Finch (analyst), who played in the event in 1991 as Open Champion, plus Billy Kratzert (course reporter).

The event will also be live-streamed coverage via www.tntdrama.com and the Watch TNT app, as well as through participating TV providers' websites  and apps.  Fans are able to access the PGA coverage whenever and wherever they want by logging in with the user name and password provided by their TV service provider.

PGA.com, the official website of the PGA of America, operated by Turner Sports, will provide exclusive live scoring, live updates and expert analysis on both days. Grand Slam Live will give fans exclusive minute-by-minute updates as well as photos, video, social interaction and expert commentary from the course.  The site also will provide a hole-by-hole course tour, player profiles, photo galleries and daily video highlights.

Established in 1979, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf has grown from an 18-hole, single-day charity event to a 36-hole annual showdown that matches professional golf's best against each other for a $1.35 million purse. This year marks the eighth year the PGA Grand Slam of Golf has originated from Bermuda and the sixth consecutive year it has been played at Port Royal Golf Course.

The excitement on the field at Chavez Ravine translated into record marks on TV and TVE screens for Fox Sports 1.

In its first day of MLB postseason action, FS1's exclusive presentation of Game 1 of the National League Division Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers on Oct. 3 averaged  3.59 million viewers, according to Nielsen fast national data.

The game -- a 10-9 nailbiter in which the Cardinals knocked Cy Young front-runner Clayton Kershaw from the box (pictured) during an eight-run,seventh inning, and then had to hold off the Dodgers which had the tying run on third with two outs in the bottom of the night -- eclisped FSI's previous Nielsen mark of 5.23 million watchers for NASCAR Sprint Unlimited event on Feb. 15.

The 14-month-old service also connected on its highest-rated and most-watched weekday daytime and non-primetime program, drawing 2.04 million viewers for its coverage of the opener of the other NLDS -- a 3-2 triumph by the San Francisco Giants over the Washington Nationals.

The home markets for yesterday’s NLDS games set individual market ratings for a televised event on FS1.  St. Louis (17.4) and Los Angeles (7.1) each set their mark for the Cardinals-Dodgers contest, while Washington DC (6.9) and San Francisco (6.6) set theirs for the Giants-Nationals tilt. The Los Angeles DMA also set a new household reach mark for a single market watching an FS1 event with 392,000.

Digitally, Fox officials said that Friday marked the best day ever for authenticated viewership for on the Fox Sports GO, as both NLDS matchups attracted more than twice the streams on the platform's previous high-water mark for a baseball event, surpassing the 2014 MLB All-Star Game.

Cartoon Network thinks it’s time to bring some adventure to its TV Everywhere platform.

The network will kick off an affiliate-supported, 10-city tour in Kansas City on Sept. 27 centered around its long-running, animated series, Adventure Time.

In the first affiliate promotion of this stripe, Cartoon Network executives hope the family-friendly events aim to drive home the message about TV Everywhere in general and the benefits of Watch Cartoon Network in particular.

“Adventure Time is one of Cartoon Network’s most popular series, and we’re pleased to bring this beloved brand to life by partnering with our distribution affiliates for fans in their local markets,” said Heather Baldino, senior vice president of marketing and revenue integration for Turner Network Sales.

Those attending the highly trafficked Nebraska Furniture Mart outlet in KC, as well as stops in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Denver and San Francisco and others that are part of the tour, will find costumed versions of the show’s Finn and Jake characters, amidst an Adventure Time branded environment, replete with a co-branded green screen. Product demonstrations will also be on the docket, as attendees can pick up related literature.

Moreover, at the Watch Cartoon Network/TV Everywhere bean bag toss game brand ambassadors from Cartoon and the in-market affiliate will inform participants about their TVE options, telling them about the authentication process, where they can simulcast the linear Cartoon Network and on what devices. They will also show users how to navigate the service and engage in its clips and games.

“There’s no better way to demonstrate and explain the power of TV Everywhere than in person, and this promotion is a perfect way for Turner to showcase both the value of the Cartoon Network brand and for the affiliates to showcase the value of having a cable subscription – it’s a win-win for everyone,” said Baldino.

She noted that the promotion affords affiliates flexibility as they also “can leverage this co-branded, family-friendly event for local ad sales and on-site sales opportunities,” as well as the TVE gambits.

Baldino believes that the popularity of Adventure Time, which has been picked up for a seventh season, will appeal to kids and their parents.

The premiere episode of Adventure Time's sixth campaign attracted more than 4.3 million viewers on April 21, according to Nielsen live+7 data. The delivery led Cartoon to the top spot among all kids/boys 2 to 11 and 6 to 11, plus tweens 9-14.

The season premiere also ranked as the network’s top telecast in 2014 to-date among boys 9 to 14.

Debuting on April 5, 2010, Adventure Time over the years has featured guest-voicing from the likes of Matthew Broderick, Donald Glover, Donald Faison, George Takei, Erik Estrada, Andy Milonakis, Emo Phillips, Bobcat Goldthwait, Susie Essman, Anne Heche, Rainn Wilson and Andy Samberg.

Universal Sports Network has signed a multiyear, multiplatform distribution agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative for the network’s exclusive Olympic, endurance and action sports fare.

Under the master agreement with NCTC, financial terms of which were not disclosed, the Co-op nearly 900 members can opt into the accord, which not only covers Universal Sports' high-definition, linear channel and authenticated TV Everywhere rights across myriad devices, but an array of video-on-demand contest as well.

Prior to the pact, Universal Sports had inked separate agreements with a number of NCTC members, including Google Fiber, Wave Broadband, GCI and Hawaiian Telcom.

Those Co-op members who opt into the master agreement will enable their subscriber bases to check out Universal's winter season sports, highlighted by top alpine skiing and figure skating competitions.

“We are excited to partner with NCTC on the distribution of our exclusive global sports programming as we continue to grow the reach of our network,” said Universal Sports president Scott Brown. “With a wide variety of sports and world-class events not available on other networks, Universal Sports fills a void and will provide NCTC members with additional value for their subscribers as operators continue to expand their sports offerings.”

“NCTC looks forward to a successful new partnership with Universal Sports Network. We are happy to offer our members the opportunity to showcase a unique variety of sports programming, including coverage of Olympic sports and athletes, and other exclusive events,” noted Judy Meyka, NCTC executive vice president of programming.

With the Co-op contract, Universal Sports, a venture between NBC Sports Group and Leo Hindery's InterMedia Partners, will look to expand its reach, The network, currently available to 62 million homes nationwide, currently counts DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Verizon FiOS and Google Fiber on its affiliate roster.

With its parent The Walt Disney Co. having inked expanded renewal deals with Mediacom, Suddenlink and the National Cable Television Cooperative and National Telco Television Consortium earlier this summer, the WatchESPN suite of products is now available to subscribers of those distributors.

With the rollouts on the providers beginning today, WatchESPN is now available to some 75 million households nationwide. DirecTV is the only major provider that doesn't have a contract to supply the WatchESPN products.

Over the summer, Disney reached extensions with Mediacom, Suddenlink, the NCTC and NTTC and their authenticated video customers can now access live sports on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Deportes, Longhorn Network, SEC Network and SEC Network + on computers, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles and connected devices.

Subscribers that receive ad hoc scoring and highligts services ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater and ESPN Bases Loaded will also be able to access them on WatchESPN when those channels are in season.  Additionally, curated on-demand video featuring the most recent and relevant content -- including highlights and news clips from ESPN.com as well as short-form segments from programs such as E:60, Outside The Lines, SC Featured, Sport Science and others -- will also be accessible through WatchESPN on select platforms.

ESPN today announced that video subscribers to Mediacom, Suddenlink and members of the NCTC and NTTC are now able to receive live access to ESPN networks through WatchESPN, enabling customers to access live sports programming on computers, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles and connected devices.  Access to WatchESPN is now currently available to 75 million households nationwide.

Video subscribers must log in with their respective online IDs and passwords to access all services.  On computers, customers can visit WatchESPN.com for live access to ESPN networks.  Subscribers with a supported smartphone or tablet can also download the free WatchESPN app by visiting the App Store, Google Play Store, Amazon Appstore or Windows Stores.

Customers will also be able to stream WatchESPN on televisions with their affiliated provider credentials via Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in the near future.

Commemorating the National Cable Television Cooperative’s 30th anniversary, executives from small cable operators across the nation and their families are going to Kansas City, Mo. for The Independent Show.

In the group’s hometown, NCTC and American Cable Association officials are gathering on Sunday, July 27 for registration, the first-timers' reception and a welcoming evening tailgate party, before getting down to business from July 28-30, when they will pursue networking opportunities, check out displays from over 140 exhibitors and engage in educational sessions, with key discussions centering on IP, TV Everywhere and, not surprisingly, rising programming costs.

This year’s event will unfurl at the Kansas City Sheraton Hotel at Crown Center. Check out the conference schedule here.    

Monday’s agenda is highlighted by a members-only meeting, where NCTC president and CEO Rich Fickle and ACA president and CEO Matt Polka will preside over the combined discussion for both organizations. The former group will conduct its 2014 board member election and present a financial overview and examine other business issues, while ACA will elect its board, distribute its member awards and provide an overview of the progress made during 2013-2014 and its plans for 2014-2015. Those events will be backed by an open discussion about key issues impacting members.

The conference’s opening general session follows: “IP is the Future – Are you on Board?” Moderated by The Wall Street Journal’s Shalini Ramachandran, the discussion will focus on the key trends and how members can align their resources to optimize the opportunity for the IP future and to ensure their place in it. The panelists: Wave Broadband CEO Steve Weed, Imagine Communications CTO Steve Reynolds, and Jimmy Schaeffler, CSO of consultancy, The Carmel Group.

Sigurd Jonny “Sig” Hansen, who leads the fishing boat Northwestern of Discovery Channel’s long-running reality hit, Deadliest Catch, will pilot conventioneers through lunch with insights as to how his vessel is one of the Alaskan crab industry’s leading producers.

On Tuesday, July 29, the ACA staff and its consultants will provide attendees with updates on a number of current issues integral to small cable operators retransmission-consent, program access, the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, net neutrality, Aereo and the Connect America Fund, among them..

Also on the agenda are three key panels: “From the TV to Everywhere: All Things TVE” that examines the burgeoning platform; a financial discourse with “Wall Street Update for Main Street MSOs”; and a look at top approaches across home security and business services, as well as other growing parts of the cable product mix, during “The Maturing Customer Experience: Best Practices in a Changing Environment.”

Tuesday night’s showcase is the 30th Anniversary Celebration Dinner, honoring NCTC’s contributions over the past three decades. The Independent Operator of the Year Awards will also be presented.  

The Independent Show concludes on Wednesday, July 30, but not before attendees and their families can break breakfast bread  (and bacon and eggs) and  learn about the success story that is Jayhawks basketball from Kansas University head coach Bill Self, who along with his wife Cindy has established the Assist Foundation, a fundraising conduit for an array of youth initiatives.

Before the NCTC and Mid-America Cable Show co-hosted golf tournament at Tiffany Springs Golf Course drives into full swing, members can learn more about such “Emerging Revenue Opportunites” as smart homes, education and healthcare; receive the latest intel on how to handle and communicate to customers when negotiations stall or go wrong in “Surviving a Programmer Dispute: It’s Not the End of the World – Roundtable Discussion”; and learn how to maximize regional sports network agreements in “Acquiring Sports Rights: History and Challenges.”

For its part, the Mid-America Cable Telecommunications Association is holding its annual event alongside the Independent Show. More information about the Mid-America Cable Show is available here.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — As cable networks gathered here last week to tout their new shows and celebrity talent to a cadre of more than 200 TV critics, a lot felt familiar but some things were different.

The format of network executives and talent answering questions from often ornery writers hasn’t changed over the decades. Yet this year’s summer Television Critics Association tour had a new wrinkle: an acknowledgement that while the concept of developing and promoting content has remained constant, the way consumers actually watch that content is changing.

That came to the forefront the first day. The opening panel wasn’t a presentation of cougars and raccoons from National Geographic Channel’s special Urban Jungle or clothed participants of Discovery Channel’s reality series Naked and Afraid, but rather a presentation from ratings company Nielsen about measuring content viewership on smart phones and tablets.

Nielsen this fall will integrate into traditional TV ratings the viewership numbers it generates from measuring the networks’ TV everywhere apps usage on mobile devices; the aim is to provide a more accurate picture of who is watching TV shows and where they’re viewing them.

Nielsen said mobile viewing will not significantly alter the ratings numbers we see for cable shows, but the company is hedging bets that mobile devices will eventually become a major platform for consumers — and eventually advertisers — in the exhibition of TV shows.

An eventual shift in viewing habits to where consumers control when and how they watch television could affect how new programming is traditionally rolled out. The industry still plays by the same rulebook it wrote in the 1950s and ’60s, when the broadcast networks premiered their best and brightest shows during the fall and ran them through late spring before taking time off in the summer.

More recently, cable added its own chapter to the book by hoarding most of its top new shows until the summer, when the broadcasters have aired reruns and reality shows.

But viewers could eventually dictate the future of content distribution through a gradual change of their comsumption habits.

For now, this summer’s TCA tour continues to serve as a great window into the future of programming content.

If the shows presented during the first four days of the tour for the upcoming TV season are any indication, 2014’s new programming will continue to build on what many critics believe is a golden age for the medium.

Univision Communications Inc. is turning to the appeal of the World Cup to kick up its TV Everywhere push.

The Spanish-language rights-holder to the FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil is live-streaming the tourney's first 56 matches and related content, plus other soccer fare available to any user, before serving up the money end of the tournament to authenticated Univision video subscribers. As such, the final eight WC matches – from the quarterfinals to the final in Estadio do Maracana on July 13 will be available digitally only to verified subscribers.

As the tourney unfolds, Univision will begin a layered multimedia messaging plan to alert users/viewers to the benefits of TVE, relative to the World Cup action, as well as the primetime entertainment fare the U.S. Spanish-language media leader makes available from its suite of networks. The initiative will culminate with a call to action, informing users/viewers that if they want to see the most important matches of FIFA’s famed tourney they will have to go through the authentication process, indicating they are subscribers to video networks.

Univision Communications executive vice president of marketing and content partnerships Jennifer Ball said the programmer set the ball rolling with the debut of its new sports app in March. Trading off NeuLion’s Sports Platform, the new ad-supported app, proffers interactive access to high-quality, live streaming coverage of other Univision soccer matches, including LigaMX action. It also offers in-match, virtual real-time highlights and stats, video highlights, schedules, individual club news, rosters and more.

“The plan was to get them accustomed to live-streaming with LigaMX and other soccer coverage,” said Ball, before Univision kicks into what she calls the “open-trial period” with World Cup group stage play, including three games from the Mexican national team (pictured) and the round of 16 matches. 

“The World Cup holds great value for many of our viewers,” said Ball. “It’s not so easy to authenticate, but we think many will enjoy the live-streaming during the open-trial period, and will have a deep emotional connection to the World Cup and want to authenticate.”

Currently, the programmer makes content available via UVideos.com and the UVideos mobile app. The programmer's subscribers can now watch an array of telenovelas, news, sports, specials, and popular Televisa fare, in Spanish or subtitled in English, from flagship service Univision, broadcaster UniMas and cable networks Galavision and Univision Deportes, as well as novella service tlNovelas and news channel FOROtv. For the most part, the content is available on a day-after basis, with some fare accessible within hours of its linear premiere.

Ball said Univision’s progress with TVE is “on par with the rest of the industry,” without specifying sign-up or usage ratios. 

She said Univision has TVE deals in place with all of the nation’s top 10 distributors, save for Comcast, which is also the only major affiliate that doesn’t carry the 40-million subscriber cable service, Univision Deportes Network. Starting on June 9, UDN will become the 24/7 home of the tournament, including simulcasts of 56 matches with flagship Univision broadcast network.

World Cup TVE promos will air during halftime and post- match coverage. On-air personalities on Weekday morning show, Despierta América (Wake Up America) will also be flagging the opportunity, as will on-air snipes. A FAQ section can also be found on its website

“We’ll have different messages for different platforms, all aimed toward getting the people excited about TVE,” said Ball, who noted sign-up particulars will manifest in the digital area.

Ball said Univision also will deploy some of the tactics it used to introduce video-on-demand offerings and when it initiated its TVE plan. To that end, users will be able to call an 800-numbers and have customer services reps assist with the verification procedure. “We will give them the benefit of our understanding and walk them through the different components,” she explained.

Univision wants to put best practices into play and stands among the coalition of programmers and operators backing marketing group CTAM’s industry-wide marketing effort to promote “tv everywhere.”

“Our goal is to make sure subscribers connect to our content, whenever and wherever they want,” Ball said. 

Esquire Network is now available on a live-streaming basis as part of NBCUniversal’s TV Everywhere initiative.

Authenticated subscribers to the service, targeting upscale, urban viewers, can now access its programming on its new mobile iOS app Esquire TV Now iOS and online at esquiretv.com/NOW.

The Esquire TV NOW iOS app, which derives its name from the Bravo Now app, can be downloaded at the iTunes store or at esquireTV.com/App. Both platforms let users watch new and acquired programming on their iPhone, iPad, laptop or home computer live as it airs, watch episodes of series currently running on the network as soon as the day after their premiere , or encore past seasons of Esquire Network original shows. The Android version of the Esquire TV NOW app is set to launch later this summer with additional features.

Viewers/users can access long-form content through Esquire Network’s digital touchpoints on PCs, mobile devices, tablets and are also able to access through the apps and websites of all participating cable, satellite, and telco services, including AT&T U-verse, Bright House Networks, Cablevision's Optimum TV, Charter, Comcast's Xfinity TV, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Dish, Mediacom, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS.

Esquire’s rollout continues NBCU’s expansion of its TVE portfolio. Last week, E! Entertainment joined the arena.

“Esquire TV NOW is the latest brand to expand our tv everywhere offerings across NBCUniversal’s portfolio, giving consumers even more ways to engage with their favorite content across multiple platforms anytime, anywhere,” said Alison Moore, executive and general manager, TV Everywhere.

Added network president Adam Stotsky: “We know that Esquire Network’s audience are early adopters who consume entertainment content as one element of their active lifestyle. It only makes sense for us to make it as easy and convenient as possible for our viewers to access and share our original programs whenever or wherever they want to view them.”

Among the top shows available to Esquire subscribers on its TVE vehicles: Lucky Bastards and Knife Fight. Next month, the second season of Brew Dogs (pictured), following its premiere across MVPD affiliate sites and apps, the network's website and YouTube one week prior to its linear bow on June 25, will also become TVE-available.

Continuing to bolster its digital offerings, Tennis Channel is introducing a subscription service on opening day of the 2014 French Open.

Tennis Channel Plus will give subscribers access to 300 live matches from 40 tournaments around the globe, including a multi-court mosaic from Paris encompassing some 70 matches over an eight-day span. Opening up a new revenue stream for Tennis Channel, the service also includes an expansive on-demand menu of historic matches and network original programming.

Available for $59.99 annually or $9.99 for a one-day pass, Tennis Channel Plus will be housed within the network’s Tennis Channel Everywhere app. This hybrid model -- MLB and the NBA proffer digital out-of-market pay packages, while WWE has launched a digital subscription network trading on a monthly charge – will give Tennis Channel Everywhere affiliates a share of the proceeds when certain customer thresholds are reached. Tennis Channel didn’t disclose those numbers or attendant revenue splits.

Adam Ware, senior vice president, head of digital media, Tennis Channel, said Tennis Channel Plus is a complementary service to the linear channel, and enables the independent network to more fully exploit its rights, while better accommodating the game’s most fervid fans.

Given the international nature of the tennis calendar, in which various tournaments unfold simultaneously from different time zones, the linear service can’t present all of the matches. “Most sports and tennis fans want the live experience,” said Ware. “Tennis Channel Plus gives them a chance to see many more matches than we can present on the network.”

Ware said the product is unique. “Tennis Channel Plus does two things no one else is doing. It offers a host of additional live matches and has an extensive on-demand menu,” he explained. “Subscribers can select what they want to see, or watch a curated schedule. Either way, it’s an enhanced experience for hard-core fans.

Its additional French Open presentations aside, Tennis Channel Plus will air exclusive Davis and Fed Cup action as tennis international team competitions play out concurrently. There will also be early-round action from ATP 250 and WTA International events, most of it live; other matches will appear on a delayed basis to protect contractual agreements with linear affiliates.

Tennis Channel Plus subscribers can also summon thousands of hours of on-demand matches, both recent and classic: Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal, Chris Evert against Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras versus Andre Agassi. Archived episodes of current series – Tour Guide and Tennis Channel Academy – plus vintage installments of earlier shows such as Center Court with Chris Myers will be available. So, too will the network's perennial short-form components: "Bag Check" and "Court Report."

The first serve for Tennis Channel Plus comes just a year after the network entered the app world, as it made live-streaming of its matches from the French Open, of which it is the primary U.S. cable rights-holder, available for free.

“There were 125,000 downloads of the app through which tennis fans could live-stream our matches,” said Adam Ware, senior vice president, head of digital media, Tennis Channel. “So, we knew there was an appetite.”

The independent network, which currently counts 35 million subscribers, 50 million during its expanded freeview period during the French on DirecTV and Dish, moved into the TVE arena by last summer’s U.S. Open, when it launched Tennis Channel Everywhere to Verizon FiOS and National Cable Television Cooperative subscribers.

Dish and DirecTV subscribers were subsequently added to the Tennis Channel Everywhere court, and the service debuted for Cox customers last week, in time for this year’s French. Another TVE launch with a major distributor is expected shortly.

Ware noted that marketing for Tennis Channel Plus, which will be seen on the network’s air and website, is also taking place at the grass roots level. “There will be a huge push at tennis clubs and with the USTA,” he said.

The United States Tennis Association holds a minority stake in Tennis Channel.

E! has entered the TV Everywhere arena with new features on its website and the debut of the authenticated app.

Part of NBCUniversal’s expanding TVE initiative, E! Now is available for Apple’s iOS devices, and is scheduled to make its way to the Android platform in mid-June.

E!’s TVE gambit provides verified viewers with access to live-streaming of the network’s portfolio that includes The Soup, Chelsea Lately, Fashion Police, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Total Divas, Hello Ross, Eric & Jessie: GameOn, and coverage from many of its "Live from the Red Carpet” events. In addition E! Now also proffers signature programming on VOD.

The network's TVE fare is available on an authenticated basis to subscribers of participating distributors, including AT&T U-verse, Bright House Networks, Cablevision's Optimum TV, Charter, Comcast's Xfinity TV, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Dish, Mediacom, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS.

Noted John Najarian, executive vice president and general manager of digital media” “In a world where time shifted viewing behavior informs how viewers consume their content, it’s critical that we make our hit shows more accessible and on multiple devices and screens. We believe this will continue to drive growth for E! and its core pop culture programming.”

Added Alison Moore, executive vice president and general manager of TV Everywhere at NBCU: “The E! Now iOS app is the latest example of NBCUniversal’s commitment to creating robust TV Everywhere experiences for our consumers. E!’s dynamic new app will ensure that their passionate fans can have a dose of pop culture anywhere, anytime.”

With some top-flight fare on the menu, Showtime will serve up a free preview next weekend to some 74 million households across cable, satellite and telco providers.

Extending from Friday, May 9 through Sunday, May 11, the freeview not only extends to the premium service, but Showtime On Demand, its TV Everywhere vehicle, Showtime Anytime, as well as a number of the participating distributors’ portals.

The free preview opens up the series premiere of drama Penny Dreadful, new episodes of original series Nurse Jackie and the final season of Californication, the premium-window premiere of Scary Movie 5, and an encore of the 12-round welterweight unification bout won by Floyd Mayweather over Marcos Maidana that played on Showtime pay-per-view on May 3.

During the preview, Showtime will make the second installment of Penny Dreadful -- a reimagining of some of literature’s most famous characters, notably Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and Dracula embroiled in Victorian London – available on Showtime Anytime, immediately after its linear bow on May 11 at 10 p.m. (ET/PT).

Free preview weekend watchers can also screen installments of original series, including Homeland, Ray Donovan, Masters of Sex, House of Lies, Weeds and Dexter on Showtime On Demand and Showtime Anytime.

The network will also air an array of theatricals including Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Part 2, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Sinister, Alex Cross, Step Up Revolution and Lincoln.

Documentary programming will include the first four episodes of Years of Living Dangerously, Richard Pryor: Omit The Logic, MAD DOG: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi, Broadway Idiot: Green Day on Broadway, Springsteen & I, Made in America, LT: The Life & Times, Billy Joel: A Matter of Trust - The Bridge To Russia and History of the Eagles, among others.

Los Angeles – While lackluster marketing efforts and poor consumer awareness have slowed the adoption of TV Everywhere, a panel of top programmers at the 2014 Cable Show said new efforts around major events like the World Cup and efforts to make the TVE experience more consistent across distribution platforms could give the service the boost it sorely needs.

TV Everywhere, or the ability for cable customers to watch select shows on any device at any time, has been touted as the industry’s answer to the over-the-top threat. But problems around authentication, a limited number of networks participating in the service because of rights issues and the difficulty for some consumers to access the service have hindered its acceptance. At the Cable Show Opening General Session Tuesday, Turner Broadcast Systems CEO John Martin called for programmers and distributors to work together to improve the customer experience.   

That theme continued to dominate on Wednesday, with top programming executives committing the bulk of a panel session moderated by Los Angeles Times staff writer Meg James called “Finding the Screens: Television Networks and the New Video Landscape,” to the TV Everywhere issue.

Despite the problems that have plagued the service, customers are beginning to see the value of TV Everywhere, especially when the service is promoted through major events like the 2014 Winter Olympics.

“We know the content is great and the customer wants to watch it,” said NBC Universal executive vice president, content distribution Matt Bond. But somewhere between the content and the customer there is a breakdown. And I think it’s pretty simple – there is not one brand, it’s been balkanized across various brands across the industry and authentication is a challenge.”

But despite those hurdles, Bond said TV Everywhere usage is growing, especially around major events like the Olympics.

Event programming could be the key to greater adoption of TV Everywhere, said HBO executive vice president, domestic network distribution Shelley Wright Brindle. She added that major events and even the introduction of the service on new platforms can drive awareness and spur users to use the service.

Wright Brindle said that with events, people are “willing to overcome the hassle,” of signing on to the service. She added that when HBO Go is launched on a new platform like Apple TV, registration for the service spikes.

“What it really means if you provide them with the experience or the content they will do it,” Wright Brindle said.

On that track, Univision Communications is taking advantage of a major upcoming sporting event – the 2014 World Cup – to help drive awareness and usage of TV Everywhere.

Univision president content distribution and corporate development Tonia O’Connor said the programmer will use the World Cup as a vehicle this summer to drive TV Everywhere authentication and usage.

“That’s our Olympics,” O’Connor said. “Our audience is extremely passionate about soccer and we are going to use that content with our distribution partners to make sure we can increase authentication.”

While marketing efforts behind the service have been scarce, that should begin to pick up. But Wright Brindle added those are not the only issues. Problems surrounding programming rights have also affected not only the networks that can be on the service, but where ad on what devices the service can be watched.

“Is it really TV Everywhere,” asked Wright Brindle. “It’s ‘Some TVs, Somewhere.’”  

Fox Networks president, distribution Mike Biard admitted that rights have been a hurdle to the adoption of TV Everywhere, but added that cable networks and broadcasters have different issues than premium networks, like advertising.

“It’s frustrating from our seats because we have the content and we want to make it available,” Biard said. “It’s just that there are a lot of steps to get there.”