Disney On the Rise
Building on its acquisition of virtual MVPD Hulu + Live TV, Disney is acquiring a stake in sports-focused competitor FuboTV. This comes shortly after Disney reached a distribution deal with fuboTV for channels including ABC, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform, ESPN, FX, and National Geographic.
The NPD Take:
- While on the surface it’s odd that Disney is investing in a competitor, this could be a sign of a pending acquisition.
- FuboTV’s sports focus is a great complement to Disney’s evolving ESPN+ asset.
TiVo’s Giant Stream 4K Device
TiVo, which is now part of Xperi, said that its recent Stream 4K connected TV device is selling faster than any of the company’s previous hardware releases. The Stream 4K launched in May with an introductory price of $49.99. The device supports Dolby Atmos sound and Dolby Vision HDR, and provides a unified platform for searching, discovering and accessing content across streaming and live TV.
The NPD Take:
- Early sales success was propelled by the COVID-19 stay-at home orders that saw a rampant uptake in sales for streaming media players. Sustaining this success will be significantly more challenging.
- Of course, it’s also worth throwing in a caveat: is selling more than any previous TiVo hardware release a positive reflection on the success of this latest device, or possibly a comment of previous slow sales? It’s hard to say how much is spin when everything is simply relative.
- TiVo is known for search and discovery and this could be the key to differentiating in the saturated streaming media player market.
Redbox’s Live Streaming TV Service Expands
Redbox’s Free Live TV streaming service has added nearly 20 channels to bring the total to over 60 channels. New channels include Wired, Architectural Digest, Black News Channel, CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation), Go Traveler, Outdoor America, and Hard Knocks Fighting. The company, best known for its DVD rental kiosks, launched its live TV service earlier this year with nearly 30 channels.
The NPD Take:
- Expanding content is critical to operate in an environment with so many other free streaming options. But that won’t be enough and Redbox will need to find a unique differentiator to truly carve out a market in this highly competitive space.
- It will be critical to leverage the Redbox brand name and kiosk distribution to facilitate new user growth.