Netflix Hits Users With Another Round Of Price Hikes

from the meet-the-new-boss... dept

It's been obvious for a while that the future of internet television is starting to look increasingly like traditional cable. Initially, the streaming sector was all about innovation, choice, and lower costs to drive subscriber interest. But as the market has matured and become dominated by bigger players, some familiar patterns have emerged, including giant companies trying to lock down as much content as possible in exclusives, and a steady parade of price hikes that slowly, surely, start to erode the value proposition.

Last week Netflix announced that the company would be imposing yet another price hike. Here in the U.S., the company's 720p "basic" tier is increasing $1 to $10 per month, its 1080p "standard" tier is increasing $1.50 to $15.50 per month, and its 4K "premium" will see a $2 increase to $20 per month. Similar hikes are also on their way to Canadian subscribers. In a statement, Netflix justified the hikes using familiar rhetoric about "improving the customer experience":

"We understand people have more entertainment choices than ever, and we’re committed to delivering an even better experience for our members," the statement said. "We’re updating our prices so that we can continue to offer a wide variety of quality entertainment options. As always, we offer a range of plans so members can pick a price that works for their budget."

Granted every time the company imposes a rate hike, folks act as if the world is falling. Back when the company bungled its "Qwikster" DVD unit spin off and imposed price hikes there were no shortage of critics insisting the company was doomed. But for now, consumers continue to find the value proposition streaming offers to be worthwhile, especially in comparison to the still high prices of traditional cable TV options. Streaming still generally sees the kind of customer satisfaction ratings traditional cable companies can only dream of.

But the price hikes that have hit streaming TV services (especially live streaming services) haven't been without repercussion. Not only did more customers cut the traditional TV cord last year, streaming TV services saw a significant reduction in growth. Netflix itself saw a significant drop in subscriber growth across 2021 and a loss in total subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, in no small part due to a 2020 price hike.

With the pricing for live streaming TV services like YouTube TV increasingly looking more and more like traditional cable, and the hunt to lock down exclusives driving increased confusion among consumers trying to find their favorite content, there continues to be a real risk the entire sector simply forgets to learn anything from the plight of traditional TV. As in, keep pushing price hikes for the same or an eroded value proposition, and you can expect a lot of potential subscribers to move to alternatives... whether that's over the air broadcasts using an antenna, or TikTok.

Filed Under: cable, price hikes, streaming, video
Companies: netflix

Study Shows Disney, Netflix Continue To Dominate Traditional TV In Customer Satisfaction

from the give-them-what-they-want dept

There's just something about terrible customer service, high prices, and sketchy product that consumers oddly don't like. American consumers' dislike of traditional cable TV providers was once again made clear this week in a new study by the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, which tracks US consumer approval of companies on a 100 point scale. As has long been the case, the full report shows most traditional cable TV, satellite, or IPTV providers languishing somewhere in the mid 60s -- scores that are bested by a long line of industries and government agencies (including the IRS).

While the report shows that streaming did drop 2.6% to a score of 74 (thanks in part to COVID-era network strain and demand), that's still significantly better that most broadband and cable TV ratings, which remain mired in the 50s and 60s:

Compare that to streaming, which provides consumers with cheaper service, greater flexibility, and better customer service:

The cable industry was already struggling in early 2020, when a record number of cable customers "cut the cord" and flocked to over the air or streaming alternatives. That was before a pandemic came to town. But with live sports less consistent and folks desperate to cut costs as they struggled to pay rent, the trend simply exploded in the second half of last year. The number of folks still paying for traditional cable has now dropped more than 22.8% from pay TV's peak back in 2014. But by the end of 2024, analysts expect that fewer than half of US homes will subscribe to a traditional pay TV service.

One survey predicts that 27 percent of US households are planning to cut cable TV from their budgets this year. That's quite an explosion for a trend that cable and broadcast executives have spent a decade pretending wasn't actually happening (it was), wasn't a big deal (it was), was only something poor losers do (studies repeatedly proved this claim false) or would rebound once Millennials began seriously procreating (that didn't happen).

It's an ongoing lesson for the oodles of cable and broadcast executives who have been wrong about this phenomenon. For giant telecom incumbents their only saving grace is the fact that their monopolies over broadband access in many markets means the bloodshed isn't quite as bad as it otherwise would be, as they can simply extract their pound of flesh via price hikes on your broadband bill.

Filed Under: customer reputation, customer satisfaction, customer service, streaming, tv, video
Companies: comcast, disney, netflix

Canadian Government Wants To Regulate Social Media Like Broadcast

from the not-gonna-work dept

It's Canada's turn in the carousel of attempts at terrible internet regulation around the world. The ruling Liberal party, which professor and internet law researcher Michael Geist has called the most anti-internet government in Canadian history for its wide variety of planned new internet laws, has been working for months on a bill to amend the Broadcasting Act and greatly broaden its scope, giving the CRTC (Canada's counterpart to the FCC) authority over all kinds of online video and audio.

Canada has a long history of requiring broadcasters to support and air Canadian content, setting percentages of airtime that must be dedicated to it. While this is controversial and of questionable efficacy, it is at least coherent with regards to television and radio broadcasting over public airwaves — but Bill C-10 would bring streaming services and many other websites under the same regulatory regime, which also includes even more concerning powers to regulate political speech. Supposedly, this is targeting services like Netflix and Spotify — which already raises some serious questions as to how such regulation would work — while the bill's champion, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, has repeatedly insisted that it will not cover social media and user generated content. The clause excluding such content was already worryingly narrow, and now the government has removed it anyway. And yet Guilbeault continues to insist user generated content has nothing to worry about, even though there are multiple reasons this is clearly untrue — not least of which is a new "exception that proves the rule" amendment setting the contours of UGC regulation, to be considered soon:

The amendment is a clear acknowledgement that user generated content are programs subject to CRTC’s regulation making power. Liberal MPs may claim the bill doesn’t do this, but their colleagues are busy submitting amendments to address the reality.

But it is not just that the government knew that its changes would result in regulating user generated content. The forthcoming secret amendment only covers one of many regulations that the CRTC may impose. The specific regulation – Section 10(1)(c) of the Broadcasting Act – gives the CRTC the power to establish regulations “respecting standards of programs and the allocation of broadcasting time for the purpose of giving effect to the broadcasting policy set out in subsection 3(1).” While the government plans to remove that regulation from the scope of user generated content regulations, consider all the other regulations it intends to keep and impose on millions of Canadians. Regulations that are not found in the amendment and therefore applicable to user generated content include regulations:

(a) respecting the proportion of time that shall be devoted to the broadcasting of Canadian programs;

(b) prescribing what constitutes a Canadian program for the purposes of this Act;
(e) respecting the proportion of time that may be devoted to the broadcasting of programs, including advertisements or announcements, of a partisan political character and the assignment of that time on an equitable basis to political parties and candidates;


Each of these speak to potential new regulation on the free speech of Canadians. Most notable may be political speech, which gives the CRTC the power to order equal time for partisan political speech. While this was designed for broadcast networks, the legislation would now cover all programs, including user generated content.

Correction: The way the bill is worded, online services are apparently not covered by the "political balance" regulatory powers.

It's a stunning, virtually unprecedented attack on the free speech of Canadians. Among the bill's biggest problems is the fact that many of these powers are extremely vague and administered at the discretion of the unpredictable CRTC — which is also part of what allows the politicians behind it to equivocate and deny when pressed on what exactly it will do. It has been called "one of the most radical expansions of state regulation in Canadian history" by those journalists who have noticed just how far-reaching it might be:

While the government claims it would not empower the CRTC to regulate smaller services such as Britbox, social media sites such as YouTube, or online news content, the bill contains no specific provisions that would prohibit it – and includes provisions that seem to allow it. For example, while the bill exempts “programs that are uploaded to an online undertaking” by its users and “online undertakings whose broadcasting consists only of such programs,” it leaves the way open for the CRTC to regulate services that show both user-generated and curated content. Like YouTube.

Likewise, lots of streaming services offer news content alongside movies and other fare. And lots of text-based news organizations, such as The Globe and Mail, also stream audio and video. So a specific exemption for audiovisual news content would not be greatly reassuring, even if the bill contained one – which it doesn’t.

Luckily, the bill is getting much more attention following the latest changes. Unluckily, it's at risk of becoming mired in the broader partisan fights of Canada's parliament — even though this is a case of something that everyone, from every party (not least the Liberals pushing it) should oppose. I don't have to explain why applying such regulations, especially about political "balance", to social media would be a disaster for free speech, especially now with the pandemic keeping people trapped at home and spawning multiple political crises across the country. It's not at all clear how the CRTC would use these powers, but there's little reason to believe they'd use them wisely (as if such a thing is even possible), and the uncertainty alone could cause user generated content platforms to clamp down on what Canadians can share.

Plus, it's especially concerning the way the government has repeatedly misled the public about what the bill will do, often contradicting itself and leaving the text full of loopholes that means it might apply to all kinds of unexpected things like app stores. Canadians from every part of the political spectrum must recognize Bill C-10 as the astonishing attack on free expression that it is, and force the government to reject it — or else the internet in Canada is going to get a whole lot smaller and less open.

Filed Under: audio, c-10, canada, content moderation, crtc, internet, internet freedom, regulations, social media, steven guilbeault, streaming, video

It's September 21st And Demi Abejuyigbe Has Another Great September 21st Video For Charity, Marred By Copyright Takedowns

from the copyright-ruins-everything dept

Copyright ruins freaking everything. Five years ago, today, Demi Adejuyigbe gifted the world with an incredible video of him dancing to Earth, Wind & Fire's classic song September. If you somehow have not seen it, I'm jealous of you for getting to watch it for the first time.

It's a reminder of the kind of gleeful content creation that only the internet enables. And it went pretty viral. So much so that Demi decided to do it again the following year. And then each year after that, with each video getting bigger and more ambitious (in somewhat incredible ways). He'd put them all threaded as replies to the original 2016 video. And I'd embed the tweets here, except for the fact that copyright ruins everything and Sony apparently decided to take down the 2017 and 2019 videos from Twitter:

This is even more ridiculous because Demi turned his September 21st videos into a successful fund raising tool for tons of good and important charities. And Sony made them disappear from Twitter. All for copyright. To be fair, the videos are still available on YouTube, but it's crazy that they're missing from Twitter.

Anyway, Demi has released the latest such video and it's very much what I needed today. I'll embed the YouTube version since apparently that has a better chance of not being stomped into the ground by a Sony copyright claim. Please watch the whole thing, and consider donating at Sept21st.com:

Filed Under: charity, copyright, demi abejuyigbe, september 21st, video
Companies: sony, twitter, youtube

AT&T's Streaming Headaches Continue As Contract Feuds Keep New TV Service Off Amazon, Roku

from the meet-the-new-boss dept

So we've noted repeatedly how AT&T's entry into the video space hasn't gone according to plan. First, the company spent so much money on mergers ($150 billion for Time Warner and DirecTV) in recent years, it effectively crippled itself with debt. Second, the company passed that merger debt on to most of its customers in the form of price hikes, which defeated the whole point of "cutting the TV cord." Third, AT&T launched so damn many confusing streaming brands simultaneously, it even confused the company's own employees.

Collectively, this resulted in AT&T losing 3.43 million TV subscribers last year alone, which certainly wasn't the kind of sector domination executives originally envisioned.

And there's every indication that things might get worse.

As noted, AT&T already offers a very confusing array of TV services: HBO Go, HBO Now, AT&T Now, AT&T TV, AT&T WatchTV, AT&T U-verse (IPTV) and DirecTV (satellite). Last week the company launched yet another streaming platform, HBO Max. But there's trouble in paradise: because of contractual standoffs with Amazon and Roku, the service apparently won't be appearing on either platform at launch. Given Roku is the most popular streaming hardware in America by a pretty wide margin (39% market share in 2019), that's kind of a problem for AT&T:

"Because of unresolved contractual agreements, anyone who has subscribed to HBO through Amazon, Roku, Comcast or a few other partners will be missing out on all that new content. And while HBO Now is effectively being phased out this week, the network will have to keep HBO Go up and running as a zombie service to give Comcast customers a way to stream.

All of this is more than just a branding nightmare. It's also a reminder of how hard it is for even a big network like HBO to transition to streaming. Pundits have long focused on the growing competition within the industry, dubbing it the "streaming wars." However, some of the most consequential conflicts in this new age of television aren't between Netflix, HBO and Disney, but between the streaming services and the tech companies that have quickly become the new intermediaries, controlling the platforms and devices that deliver movies and TV shows to our homes.

It's interesting to see the tables turned on AT&T, a company routinely used to being in the driver's seat. With Roku now so dominant, AT&T now has to deal with dominant gatekeepers to get its content and services seen on platforms, and so far it's not going particularly great. AT&T had already been in a stand off with Roku that involved the company's creatively-named AT&T TV Now service going dark on all Roku devices. That standoff has now extended to HBO Max, which was supposed to be AT&T's attempt at turning its subscriber losses around.

And while a Roku deal is supposedly getting closer, AT&T remains in a standoff with Amazon over licensing that seems more intractable, given Amazon currently takes a 30-50% cut of HBO subscribers via its "channel" approach to offering other platforms' content:

"Roku is said to be close to a deal, but WarnerMedia has been unable to come to an agreement with Amazon. The ecommerce giant has been distributing HBO online through Amazon Channels, a dedicated marketplace for subscription video services that is tightly integrated into streaming adapters and smart TVs running Amazon's Fire TV platform. Prime Video subscribers can easily add HBO with a few button taps of their Fire TV remote."

So in many ways, the kind of annoying content licensing and retransmission feuds (and annoying blackouts) we saw with traditional cable TV have only simply evolved in the streaming era. But AT&T now finds itself without the kind of power it enjoyed in telecom, where competition is virtually nonexistent and government routinely protected it from the faintest whiff of failure. Even AT&T's attempt to tilt the playing field in its favor to gain leverage in the streaming wars via the net neutrality repeal (ensuring AT&T's unnecessary broadband caps only apply to a competitor's service) isn't likely to help here.

AT&T can probably still right the ship, consolidate its confusing brands, and strike new deals in time. But it's still frequently entertaining to see broadband giants try to compete and innovate after decades of being government pampered monopolies. More often than not, the end result of that steep learning curve (see Verizon's Go90) isn't particularly pretty. Meanwhile, these kinds of standoffs will only lead to frustration and higher piracy rates, which these companies will then blame on everything but themselves a few years from now.

Filed Under: competition, contracts, streaming, video
Companies: amazon, at&t, roku

Shocking Absolutely No One, Ring Admits Employees Improperly Accessed Customers' Data

from the who-could-have-seen-this-coming dept

Ring never fails to disappoint. And by "disappoint," I mean never fails to be disappointing. This pleases me. So, I guess Ring never fails to please… by being incessantly disappointing.

I realize this is beginning to resemble a beating that continues long past the point the victim has lapsed into unconsciousness. But if Ring hadn't made itself such an inviting punching bag, I would not continue to rain down printed blows on its oh so very soft body.

Ring first grabbed our attention by offering up a snitch app that encouraged neighbors to start talking about suspicious people in their neighborhood. This app also happened to be a portal for the voluntary sharing of footage captured by Ring cameras, most of which were built into Ring's "smart" doorbells.

From there, things went from bad to worse to godawful to horrendous to PR-team-on-constant-suicide-watch. It has been super-enjoyable for me (and hopefully for Techdirt readers) for two reasons:

1. Ring promiscuously got in bed with over 600 law enforcement agencies, selling them "free" cameras to hand out to homeowners with some implicit/not-so-implicit strings attached. In return, law enforcement agencies gave up their authority and autonomy, granting Ring permission to write their press releases and statements for them.

2. Ring does not care about its customers. It enjoys a commanding lead in the market, but it has produced yet another internet-connected thing that it does not bother to secure properly. When breaches happen -- and they are unimaginably horrifying breaches that involve hijacked cameras -- the company says customers should have done more to secure their devices, rather than accept any responsibility for doing as little as possible to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

So, the latest news is more fuel for the dumpster fire. It's not just cops grabbing footage without bothering with the Fourth Amendment niceties. There's also abuse happening internally -- the sort of abuse you'd expect when you give people access to a wealth of personal information.

The doorbell-camera giant Ring has terminated employees in recent years for improperly accessing users’ video data, parent company Amazon told lawmakers this week, an admission that could increase pressure on the firm to prove it protects customer privacy.

The company has investigated four complaints regarding employees abusing their access to camera data over the past four years, Brian Huseman, a vice president of public policy at Amazon, wrote in a letter to five senators this week.

The company did not provide any detail about the data that was improperly accessed, but considering how much data Ring collects -- along with footage from millions of cameras -- the imagination is free to run wild.

This is the latest unsurprising development for Ring. Give enough people access to intimate recordings and data, and abuse is bound to happen. Maybe the Ring employees were just following the lead of their law enforcement partners, who also have access to a great deal of personal info and abuse this access with alarming frequency.

I'm sure Ring will weather this news cycle as it has every other over the past 12 months: by claiming it takes everyone's security seriously and sending out tweets to anyone tagging the company with the latest bad news saying the coverage is inaccurate. But no one believes Ring, especially when its defensive tweets talk their way around direct questions and link to talking points delivered by Ring reps.

Ring is no longer just a dumpster fire d/b/a a security camera company. Its flaming dumpster existence is mounted to every flatbed car on a never ending train wreck. It can't pull the plug on its thousands of buddy cops. And it appears to be far more interested in market growth than properly serving the customers it already has. Things will get worse. That's it. There's no "before it gets better." At best, Ring can only hope to fade from the public eye before it alienates any more of its past and future customers.

Filed Under: abuse, doorbells, employees, police, surveillance, video
Companies: amazon, ring

Comcast Wireless Joins Verizon In Charging You More For HD Video

from the pay,-and-then-pay-some-more dept

One of the more subtle assaults on net neutrality has been the slow but steady introduction of arbitrary, often unnecessary restrictions mobile carriers will then charge you to get around. Sprint, for example, has toyed with plans that throttle all video, music, and games unless you pay extra. Verizon has also banned 4K video from its network unless you pay more for 5G (which isn't widely available). The company also now throttles all video on its "unlimited" data plans, charging consumers even more if they want to view content in HD as the originating service intended.

Comcast has now followed Verizon's lead, and its new wireless service will also now ban HD videoon its unlimited data plans unless you pony up an adidtional $20 per month. The company technically began throttling all video to 480p on its wireless network a week ago, but only just last week announced that users would now be charged more if they actually wanted to watch video in HD:

"Xfinity Mobile's unlimited data plan costs $45 per line per month, but video streams are generally limited to 480p resolution. Comcast yesterday announced a new $20-per-month HD Pass "for an upgrade to HD video resolution on Unlimited lines (720p on phone and 1080p on tablets)." That raises the monthly price to $65."

The problem with these efforts begins with the fact that Americans already pay some of the highest prices for 4G mobile data in the developed world. In exchange, they get mobile 4G broadband service that ranks somewhere around 30th worldwide in terms of speed. Studies also show that US wireless provider video quality is similarly some of the worst in the developed world due to many of the nickel-and-diming, erroneous restrictions being placed on mobile lines.

The other problem with these kinds of plans is one of precedent. Once you open the door to letting giant telecom companies impose arbitrary barriers you'll then have to pay extra to get around, you open the door to all manner of additional, problematic efforts (especially with the recent neutering of FCC authority and net neutrality). Want your games to work as intended? Pay us more. Want your music streaming to be free of arbitrary restrictions? Pay us more. Want to use Netflix instead of a telecom's TV services? Pay us more.

One way to help minimize these issues is to stop mindlessly signing off on competition-eroding megamergers that only act to reduce any incentive to genuinely compete on price. Instead of direct competition, wireless carriers adore saddling their plans with so many bizarre restrictions and caveats that direct pricing comparisons are often impossible for the average user. Frightened by what they don't understand, these users are then incentivized to buy the most expensive plan in order to avoid overage fees or other restrictions. It's a pricing funnel designed with one thing in mind: upselling you to a more expensive plan.

Another answer to this growing problem is for carriers to finally stop marketing clearly limited plans as "unlimited." For fifteen years or so US mobile carriers have marketed "unlimited" data plans with an ocean of very real, very confusing limits. Comcast's unlimited data plan, for example, throttles users back to DSL speeds (1.5Mbps download/750kbps upload) after 20 gigabytes of monthly use. Despite getting government wrist slaps for the better part of 15 years this practice has only accelerated, the number of caveats have grown, and it's a wonder Americans have any idea what kind of connection they're actually buying.

Enter the death of net neutrality rules, which not only prohibited many of the more elaborate, heavy handed nickel-and-diming efforts by mobile carriers, but mandated that wireless carriers be entirely clear about what kind of mobile connection you're buying. Wary of the rules being restored due to the state AG and Mozilla lawsuit against the FCC, many mobile carriers are trying to behave. But should the states and Mozilla lose their bid to restore the rules, this entire problem is going to get exponentially worse in relatively short order.

Filed Under: broadband, net neutrality, streaming, video
Companies: comcast, verizon

AT&T Loses 1 Million Video Users After Spending Billions On Mergers To Dominate Video

from the whoops-a-daisy dept

This wasn't how it was supposed to go for AT&T. In AT&T executives heads, the 2015, $67 billion acquisition of DirecTV and the 2018 $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner were supposed to be the cornerstones of the company's efforts to dominate video and online video advertising. Instead, the megadeals made AT&T possibly one of the most heavily indebted companies in the world. To recoup that debt, AT&T has ramped up its efforts to nickel-and-dime users at every opportunity, from bogus new wireless fees to price hikes on both its streaming and traditional video services.

Not too surprisingly, these price hikes are now driving subscribers to the exits.

The company's latest earnings report indicates that AT&T not only lost another 778,000 "traditional" video subscribers last quarter (satellite TV, IPTV), but it lost another 168,000 subscribers at its DirecTV Now streaming service -- due to "higher prices and less promotional activity":

"The service had lost 83,000 subscribers in the first quarter after a 267,000 drop in the fourth quarter of 2018. As of the end of June, the service had 1.3 million subscribers. Cowen analyst Colby Synesael had predicted DirecTV Now would lose 50,000 subscribers in the second quarter. The company also lost 778,000 traditional pay TV subscribers in the second quarter between its DirecTV satellite TV and U-Verse services after losing 544,000 in the first quarter, citing "an increase in customers rolling off promotional discounts, competition and lower gross adds due to a focus on the long-term value customer base."

Keep in mind this is happening before the playing field gets flooded with new competitors, like Disney's new Disney+ service, which is expected to launch this November. Disney's pulling most of its content off of services like Netflix and making it exclusive to its platform. Other companies, like Apple and Comcast, also have new streaming ventures in the works with a similar focus on exclusives. As competition heats up, many of these companies are going to be happy to take a temporary loss to establish market share. AT&T can't do that because it's swimming in debt.

Granted, AT&T still has some tricks up its sleeve. Its successful lobbying gambit to kill net neutrality and erode FCC authority over telecom means nobody will really be minding the store as AT&T begins using its dominance of broadband to its tactical advantage. While ISPs have tried to remain on their best behavior as they wait for the result of the multi-AG lawsuit against the FCC (which would restore the net neutrality rules if the FCC loses), AT&T has still managed to try and test the waters with anti-competitive moves like only making usage caps apply to competitors' services.

Should the FCC win its lawsuit, you can expect AT&T's anti-competitive efforts to quickly become far more creative and way less subtle. Because if there's anything history tells us about natural, government-pampered monopolies like AT&T, they're terrible at innovating their way through direct, head to head competition, as these latest quarterly numbers clearly attest. And when you can't win in fair head to head competition, you cheat. It's the American way!

Filed Under: competition, mergers, video
Companies: at&t, directv, time warner