The Secret to Great TV is Pretend the TV Doesn’t Exist
Though CES and it’s expansive show floor didn’t technically open until this morning, the Las Vegas Convention Center was busy yesterday with a series of panels on ways to develop and support entertainment on novel platforms via unique partnerships. A surprising theme emerged out of a series of seemingly disparate panels: The secret to creating a great multi-platform premium TV-style content experience is to pretend TV never existed. That’s right – just work as if linear television had never been invented. This concept came up in a panel on multi-screen content strategies, on Hollywood-brand
CES 2016: What We’re Looking Forward To
Buckle up. We’re about to hit four straight days of serious tech. Tomorrow morning, CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, kicks off in a strangely drizzly Las Vegas, Nevada. For those who don’t live and breathe in the digital biome, CES is an enormous technology convention delivering previews and deep dives into the gadgets and ideas that will define 2016. Now in it’s 49th year, CES has come to be an annual pilgrimage. Nearly 200,000 visitors descend on Vegas, ready to buy, sell, and generally geek out over everything from TVs to drones, routers to VR goggles. At that size, CES is big enough to
Hitting the Accelerator: FCC Report Shows American Broadband Speeds Continue To Rise
At this very moment, millions of consumers across the U.S. are using the Internet to keep up with the news, connect with others, stream live video, shop online and live life as we know it in our global connected society. But the Internet wouldn’t be so prevalent in our lives if our connections stuttered, delayed or didn’t deliver the performance that consumers paid for. That’s why the FCC five years ago began collecting data about network performance by monitoring the experience of thousands of Internet users throughout America. Last week, the FCC released the results of its fifth annual
Happy Holidays from NCTA
What Happened in Streaming Media in 2015?
Sources: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/US-Adults-Spend-55-Hours-with-Video-Co… http://www.statista.com/chart/3852/us-music-industry-revenues/ http://www.statista.com/chartoftheday/Streaming/ https://www.sandvine.com/trends/global-internet-phenomena/ http://www.leichtmanresearch.com/press/120315release.html http://www.statista.com/chartoftheday/Streaming/ https://www.ncta.com/positions/future-of-TV https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q3-state-of-the-…
How to Ensure a Tax-Free Internet
This coming January, Congress will have the opportunity to ensure America’s Internet users never see taxes go up on their Internet access. They can accomplish this by passing a permanent extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), which prevents states and local governments from taxing Internet access. Keeping Internet access free from burdensome state and local taxes has been an overwhelming bipartisan priority since 1998. After all, if you take a look at your phone or cable bill, you will see how states and municipalities have loaded up a bunch of different fees that can increase the
Top 6 TV Moments of 2015
From artistic and powerful storytelling to inspiring characters, fictious and real, television pretty much covered it all this year. As 2015 comes to a close, we’d like to look back at some of the news and entertainment moments that grabbed our attention. Here are a few of our favorites: THE WALKING DEAD SEASON FIVE FINALE Last Spring, the season final of The Walking Dead drew 15.8 million viewers. with all 16 episodes of the season ranking in the top 50 telecasts across all of television in a beloved and hard-to-attract demographic, adults in the 18-49 age range. TV by the Numbers cited this
The Second Screen Brings Us Back to the Communal Days of Television
Humans crave companionship, and one of the most popular physical representations of this can be seen through the act of watching television. In the early days of television, the television set was the communal spot for family and friends to gather and share in an entertainment experience. While this still happens, especially on big game nights or for premieres for shows like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, the advent of viewer personalization services like DVRS, video on demand and TV Everywhere brought on more flexibility and choices for people to find their own content specific to their
What Makes for a Good Gaming Experience?
Not into the gaming scene? Seems like there’s never been a better time to find out what all the hype is about. Gaming isn’t what it used to be. Thinking back to 15, 20 years ago, gamers were usually stereotyped as kids who were glued to their Sega or Nintendo boxes. Fast forward time, and the shift from console-based gaming to online gaming, largely due to developments in broadband capabilities, has opened up a myriad of opportunities in the multiplayer gaming world and led to some serious changes in the audience demographic. But what can these advancements in the market be attributed to? Avid
[VIDEO] NCTA President & CEO Michael Powell on C-SPAN's The Communicators
NCTA President and CEO Michael Powell appeared on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators” this week. He talked about issues ranging from a lawsuit challenging the FCC’s Open Internet Order, Net Neutrality, the upcoming spectrum auction, set top boxes, and the potential harms of LTE-U technology on Wi-Fi. You can see the full video here: This blog also appeared in CTAM SmartBrief.