Canada's planned 2023 auction of 250 MHz of C-band spectrum for 5G might mean incumbent user Telesat will be approached by auction bidders about clearing out sooner than the 2025 deadline, though that could be "a messy process" about spectrum not yet won and possibly revealing confidential bidding strategies, Lightshed Partners analyst Walt Piecyk wrote investors Tuesday. He said Telesat will be left with 200 MHz, but it likely needs only half that, which could be an opportunity to monetize the other 100 MHz later. He said the Innovation Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada announcement last week about the country's C-band approach seems to "set Canada’s 5G ecosystem back relative to other countries." Telesat was willing to clear the spectrum by end of 2023, so ISED setting a 2025 deadline is "a loss for the wireless operators and suppliers in Canada," he said. Canada delaying accessing the C band will drive up prices, which benefits the Canadian government, he said. Telesat said it's evaluating ISED's 3.8 GHz decision. It said ISED didn't adopt Telesat's proposal for clearing a portion of the band and auctioning that spectrum, with proceeds going to help fund Telesat's planned low earth orbit Lightspeed constellation, but it was "pleased that the decision acknowledged the important role LEO constellations can play in bridging the Digital Divide and, to this end, that the Government is in discussions with Telesat to support funding of the Lightspeed program.”
Top cable providers had a Q1 net loss of about 775,000 video subscribers, reported Leichtman Research Group Wednesday. Losses in Q1 2020 were 595,000. Comcast slid 491,000 to 19.3 million. AT&T Premium TV, Dish Network, Verizon Fios and Frontier shed 865,000, led by AT&T Premium. Top publicly reporting virtual MVPDs lost 255,000 vs. 210,000 exits a year ago. Overall, top U.S. pay-TV providers dropped 1.89 million vs. 1.95 million losses a year ago. The only pay-TV service to post Q1 gains was fuboTV, which added 42,550 to reach 590,430. Hulu shed 200,000 to 3.8 million, and Sling TV dropped 100,000 to 1.4 million. The top seven cable companies have 43.1 million of the 78.7 million pay-TV subscribers. Other traditional pay-TV services have 28.9 million and vMVPDs 6.7 million. Over the past year, top pay-TV providers lost 4.79 million vs. a loss of 5.12 million in the prior year, said Principal Bruce Leichtman.
Pandemic trends are stressing tablet supplies, said Strategy Analytics Thursday. There was a 44% year-on-year shipment spurt to 45.8 million units vs. Q1 2020. The top four global vendors had double-digit increases, led by Apple (16.8 million units), Samsung (8.3 million), Amazon (3.8 million) and Lenovo (3.8 million); No. 5 Huawei had a 33% drop to 2 million. A focus on productivity is part of most tablet vendor strategies, said the researcher. Even as laptop demand stays hot, Windows detachables from Microsoft, Lenovo, HP and Dell “are showing growth once again,” said analyst Chirag Upadhyay, citing use for entertainment, games and communication. Analyst Eric Smith said tablet strength should continue based on work-from-home trends “as people look beyond COVID restrictions.”
MVPDs in the COVID-19 pandemic era need to ramp up efforts to engage subscribers with new innovations and business models “or risk accelerating customer losses,” blogged Parks Associates analyst Kristen Hanich Wednesday. Three in five pay-TV households are interested in streaming movies and TV shows from an over-the-top video service as part of their subscription, Hanich said, and many providers are responding to demand: The number of customers receiving OTT services has jumped 50% in a year. Nearly 80% of pay-TV households have both pay-TV and OTT subscriptions, with the number of OTT services among households with any online video service averaging 3.8 subscriptions vs. 4.2 for pay-TV homes. Other findings: 43% of pay-TV households want video calls on their TV; 40% want to control smart home devices and security systems; and 34% are interested in playing video games on TV via a cloud gaming service. Pay-TV providers must keep offering their most valuable content, including live sports and cultural events, Hanich said. In addition to offering streaming channels, they need to target new services to customers and “be willing to take a hit on pricing until this chaotic market stabilizes.”
Paid subscriptions, at $3.8 billion, were 67% of total music industry revenue, and 79% of total streaming revenue, in the first half, reported RIAA Thursday. Paid subscription growth of 14% outpaced overall streaming music revenue growth of 12%. Streaming revenue was 85% of revenue in the half, physical sales 7%, digital downloads 6% and synch 2%. Average subscriptions were 72 million, up 24% vs. the year-ago half, with more than a million net subscriptions added monthly. Ad-supported on-demand streaming music revenue slowed to 3% at $421 million because due to COVID-19. Services' Q2 ad revenue had double-digit declines. Store closures due to the coronavirus led to a 23% falloff in physical products to $376 million. Vinyl album sales grew in Q1 but reversed in Q2, resulting in a first-half net increase of 4%. At 62% of total physical revenue, vinyl outpaced CD sales for the first time since the 1980s. Vinyl generated 4% of overall industry revenue. Digital and customized radio services receipts grew 6% to $583 million. Digital downloads’ share declined from 8% to 6% at $351 million.
The FCC provided more details on the rules for the upcoming C-band auction in the draft public notice, circulated for an Aug. 6 vote by commissioners (see 2007150066). The FCC also posted draft items on inmate calling services rates and media modernization, among others set for a vote.
The residential alarm-monitoring market is being pinched during the pandemic. Omdia scaled back 2020 growth projections Tuesday from 3.8% in 2020 to 0.8%. The market is historically less susceptible to economic downturns than other industries but is “feeling the pain” during the pandemic, said Blake Kozak. “The COVID-19 crisis is on a completely different scale than previous recessions,” said Kozak. Employees entering consumers’ homes must wear personal protective equipment, said the analyst. Cable operators and telcos are taking similar steps, and some of those companies and tech platforms also have home security products (see 2004100038).
Comcast, Charter and Altice's combined 3.8 million mobile lines may not seem significant, but the apparent leveling off of some major wireless carriers points to the three cable companies eating into big carriers' market growth, blogged CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson Monday. Their ability to bundle mobile service with other services like broadband will likely lead to accelerating customer acquisition, he said.
Space startups attracted $5.7 billion in financing in 2019, smashing the $3.5 billion record set in 2018, though it's still a handful of companies attracting the vast bulk of the funding, Bryce Space and Technology said Monday. SpaceX, Blue Origin, OneWeb and Virgin Galactic combined had more than $3.8 billion of that financing, it said. Bryce said 135 space startups received investment in 2019, up 34% from the 2018 previous record. Besides the big four, startup investments totaled $1.8 billion, down slightly from the $1.9 billion in investment excluding those companies the previous year, it said. But 2019 had a big increase in the number of rounds with undisclosed investments -- 38, compared with 15 in 2018 -- pointing to the actual total for the year topping $1.8 billion, it said. Seventy-nine non-U.S. startups got financing in 2019, up from 47 in 2018, while the number of U.S. firms leveled off, with 56 seeing financing, versus 53 in 2018, it said.
A manufacturer of radiation reduction accessories published findings from an independent testing lab Tuesday, claiming the iPhone 11 Pro emits “more than twice the FCC’s legal safety limit for radio frequency (RF) radiation from a cellphone.” The test could be an indication other phones expose users to more radiation than legally allowed, it said.