Company News & Earnings

Cablevision adds video subs, strikes Newsday deal

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:59:40 -0400

While some cable TV companies are taking an obvious hit from telco IPTV competition (see Comcast), others may not be seeing much of an impact. Cablevision Systems last week said it added 41,000 digital-video subscribers and 2,000 basic-video customers to its current 3.1 million video subscribers during the first quarter of this year, adding that it has seen little impact from Verizon Communications' FiOS service. The company also has moved aggressively into Verizon's traditional segments with its Optimum Lightpath data and voice services. In addition, the company said it will spend more than $300 million on rolling out Wi-Fi technology in the New York metro area and on Long Island over the next two years.

This week, Cablevision made another intriguing, though somewhat puzzling move, saying it will pay $650 million to acquire most of suburban newspaper Newsday. Arguably, Newsday could help Cablevision competitively by giving it more promotional heft for its offerings against whatever marketing blitz competitor Verizon may muster. It could also create cross-selling opportunities for advertisers that might be thinking of moving more money over to IPTV platforms. Still, newspapers as medium are weakening by the hour, so the benefits could be short-term at best.

For more:
- See this story about earnings and another about the Newsday deal at The Wall Street Journal
- and Cablevision's quarterly results

Related articles:
- Cablevision's Newsday deal seems unlikely to start a trend. Cablevision report
- Cablevision to rollout WiFi network. Cablevision WiFi report

Dish Network can't match DirecTV growth

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:59:20 -0400

It is still too early to tell how AT&T's new commitment to re-sell Dish Network satellite TV services across all of its markets will affect Dish's business, but as the sales effort gears up, it will come none too soon. Dish Network reported as part of its first quarter financial results this week that it added only 35,000 new subscribers during the quarter, almost 89 percent less than the 310,000 it added for the same quarter last year. The figure also is far less than DirecTV's Q1 subscriber additions of about 275,000, posted last week.

AT&T had been re-selling both Dish Network and DirecTV service, the latter in the former BellSouth region, but recently committed to go forward with Dish alone. Did it bet on the wrong horse, and by the way, how much is AT&T's own IPTV success affecting its satellite TV partner?

For more:
- read this Associated Press story at Yahoo! Finance

Related articles:
- Could AT&T acquire EchoStar? AT&T report
- EchoStar wins slice of spectrum in FCC auction. EchoStar report

SureWest climbs Everest to new IPTV heights

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:59:10 -0400

SureWest Communications posted 180 percent growth in IPTV subscribers during the first quarter, but before you start copying their marketing materials, consider that most of that growth--about 172 percent of it--came from the Roseville, Calif. telco's acquisition of Kansas City-based Everest Broadband. SureWest now has 55,200 IPTV customers across the board. The company recently launched an HD DVR service that could further help grow and monetize its IPTV offering.

For more:
- see this post at IPTV News

Related articles:
- Surewest otherwise increase revenue, but barely show profit. SureWest report
- SureWest recently launched VoIP and HD DVR services. SureWest report

Comcast takes video hit, but adds telephony subs

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:59:40 -0400

Is video becoming a point of market weakness for cable TV companies? That could be the case if we decide to invest in the trend suggested by Comcast's first quarter 2008 earnings report last week. The company said that it lost 57,000 basic video subscribers during the quarter, and even though it added about 494,000 digital video customers, the latter number was observed to be less than some analyst estimates, according to The Wall Street Journal. Comcast also saw its first-quarter profit dip about 12.5 percent compared to the same period last year. Still, it remains to be seen if video softness is an industry-wide trend. Time Warner Cable had said previously that it added both basic video and digital video customers during the quarter, and at least met estimates in both areas.

Meanwhile, Comcast added 639,000 digital telephony subscribers during the first quarter and almost half a million broadband Internet customers. Comcast now has about 5.1 million voice customers, and seems to be one of the chief beneficiaries of telco landline loss, but its ability to steal voice customers from telcos is not impressive enough to cover the higher-value video customers it is losing to the telcos.

For more:
- see this report at The Wall Street Journal
- read this blog post at ZDNet.com
- check out this follow-up at GigaOM

Related articles:
Comcast reported a profit jump in Q4 2007 Comcast report
Is Comcast planning a wireless network? Comcast report

NXP acquires Conexant unit for $110 million

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:59:30 -0400

NXP Semiconductors last week announced it is acquiring the broadband media business of Conexant Systems for about $110 million, a deal value which could rise of the business unit meets certain performance thresholds in the months to come. The deal is significant to NXP's ability to compete against semiconductor players Broadcom and STMicroelectronics, the company told EETimes. The Conxant unit, like NXP, has expertise in the area of IPTV. The Conexant unit also brings technology related to DOCSIS 3.0, Multimedla over Coax Alliance and Secure Video Processor standards. The Conexant group collected about $205 million in revenue in 2007.

For more:
- see this story at EETimes

Related articles:
- Conexant joined the MoCA board last fall. Conexant report
- Sony, NXP team for mobile payment chip venture NXP report

KPN adds 56,000 IPTV customers in Q1

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:59:20 -0400

Dutch telco KPN Telecom reported that it signed up 56,000 new IPTV customers during its first quarter, a boost that now gives the company about 553,000 IPTV subscribers. The main IPTV competition in the Netherlands for KPN is Tele2. The additional IPTV helped fuel a 22% rise in KPN's overall revenue for the quarter. The company has been rumored in the past to be a potential acquisition target for firms such as AT&T and Spain's Telefonica, but KPN official said the telco currently is not engaged in any takeover talks.

For more:
- see this post at IPTV News

Related articles:
- KPN launched its IPTV service two years ago this month. KPN report
- Nortel lends help to telecoms looking at IPTV Nortel report

Mossberg Blesses Web Video, Bashes Broadband Before iPhone Tease

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:59:10 -0400

Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, or "Uncle Walt" to his fans, last week declared that the web is becoming a video medium. However, he went on to bash existing U.S. broadband networks as compared to the rest of the world, deeming it a problem for delivering video over the Internet. The comments, made during an executive summit held by Beet.tv last week, were overshadowed by the noted curmudgeon stating that the Apple iPhone will be "3G in 60 days."

For more:
- Read the News.com blog post here.
- "The Web is Becoming a Video Medium," Declares Walt Mossberg here.
- Watch Uncle Walt's DSL comments on beet.tv

Related articles:
A disruptive change of face for IPTV
Analyst: Infineon-powered 3G iPhone by June?

Comcast fails to sway Wall Street

Tom Burton — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:59:40 -0500

Comcast continues to struggle to persuade investors its triple-play strategy is winning. Its share price is down 35 percent over the year, making it the seventh-worst performing stock on the NASDAQ 100 index. Despite a 54 percent increase in Q4 income and a dividend payment, CEO Brian Roberts is under pressure from major shareholder Chieftain Capital Management Inc., which last month called for his ouster. The offer of a dividend did spur a small rally last week with prices up 95 cents to $20.19 at market close Friday.

Roberts has overseen an aggressive $6 billion investment to equip Comcast to provide triple-pay services across its cable footprint of 40 million homes. Comcast has been the most successful non-telco in signing up customers to its digital voice and high-speed Internet offerings. It is now the fourth-largest supplier of residential telephony in the U.S. Both Verizon and AT&T's U-verse service are aggressively ramping up their IPTV roll outs, and both are expected to impact Comcast's subscriber growth in its traditional markets as well as cap its pricing.

Roberts said Comcast expects revenue to increase 8 percent to 10 percent this year, and its capital expenditures as a percentage of revenue to decline to 18 percent in 2008. Comcast is also under tight scrutiny by the FCC, where chair Kevin Martin has singled Comcast out for special attention. He claims Comcast is too dominant as evidenced by the 10 percent average yearly pricing increases over the last decade.

For more:
- Comcast Q4 income up 54 percent Article
- Comcast investors seek buyback, payout as shares drop Article

Related articles:
Comcast raises profit, declares dividend Report
Comcast defends P2P management Report

SlingBox doubles as a cable modem

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:59:20 -0500

Also pushing for TV viewer attention is Sling which announced for CES its SlingModem product. The SlingModem acts as both as cable modem and a box to stream TV to any internet enabled device.

Sling is the leader in so called "placeTV" sector and also announced an HD version for its core SlingBox product to enable streaming of full HD content to external PC's and other devices.

The modem combo is a potential game changer and is likely to push other cable and IPTV operators to seek to similar functionality. Sling's parent, EchoStar Holdings, is keen to be operator agnostic and are enthusiastically promoting the new combo to any cable or telco TV operator which wants it.

But it was the announcement of an application to stream home TV to BlackBerry smart phones that got all the attention. The BlackBerry application, to be released later this year, will also mark the first time the popular corporate tool will be able to handle streamed media, although the latest World Phone version does have a video player.

For More:
- Sling Media shows player for BlackBerry smartphones Article
- Sling combines Cable modem and SlingBox Article

Related article:
- Sling releases mobile application Release
- NHL comes to Sling's aid as partner Report

SPOTLIGHT: PV to power Google phone video

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:59:00 -0500

California based Packet Video (PV) is to deliver the multimedia backbone for Google's Android device platform. The ten year old company is owned by NextWave and joined the open handset alliance as a foundation member and has extensive experience in the mobile video space. PV supplies the multimedia software that drives Verizon Wireless' VCAST music and video services, NTT DoCoMo's 3G FOMA service and Orange's Orange World and claims to be installed on over 100 million handsets. Release