Cordkillers 279 - Your Parents' Packages (w/ Ken Napzok)
Facebook to sell video services, Disney+ doing a ton of Fox reboots, and USA Basketball on Twitch. All this and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Ken Napzok.
CordKillers: 279 - Your Parents' Packages
Recorded: August 12 2019
Guest: Ken Napzok
Intro Video
Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore AKA Dolemite in this new Netflix film
Primary Target
U.S. Pay-TV Subscriber Losses More Than Triple To 1.5M In Q2, Report Finds
Cord-Cutting Household Total Approaches Number Of Pay-TV Subscribers
-A study from eMarketer found the number of cord-cutting households in the US rose 19.2% so far this year
- EMarketer estimates pay TV households will decline 4.2% by the end of the year to 86.5 million. That trend would put it below 80 million by 2021 and 72.7 million by 2023. Households without cable is expected to rise to 56.1 million by 2023.
- In more solid numbers Leichtman Research analyzed earnings reports and found pay TV subscribers fell 1.53 million in Q2, up from the 420,000 in subscriber losses in the same quarter last year. Satellite accounted for more than half of the net losses this time around.
- It's the 4th consecutive quarter of record subscriber losses. top pay-TV providers have now lost 5 million subscribers over the past five years
- TV viewing itself is falling according to emarketer with TV time expected to drop 3% in the US this year to an average of 3 hours and 40 minutes.
How to Watch
Facebook to Test Selling Video Subscriptions
-One disadvantage of cutting the cord is having to handle bills from multiple services. One solution to this has been aggregators like Amazon's Prime Video, Roku and Hulu, that let you dd on services to theirs for one bill and one place to manage subscriptions. AppleTV Channels is a recent entrant into this market. And it looks like Facebook wants to get into it too. Facebook is launching a small scale test in the US to sell subscriptions to BritBox, CollegeHumor’s Dropout, MotorTrend App and Tastemade Plus. The prices are all he same as subscribing directly from the service itself ranging from $3 to $7 a month. Subscribers will be able to join discussion groups to talk about recent episodes and participate in Facebook’s Watch Parties, which let multiple users watch videos concurrently and chat in real-time. Facebook plans to launch a connected TV app for the services this autumn.
What to Watch
Disney+ To Revive ‘Home Alone’, ‘Night At The Museum’, More As Part Of Fox Reset
- During Disney's earnings call, Bob Iger says Disney+ will eventually include reboots of franchises from the Fox movie library, including Home Alone, Night At the Museum, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Cheaper By the Dozen. He also announced the company is redoing the whole Fox development slate, though Avatar, Planet of the Apes, X-Men and Deadpool seem to be safe. Alan Horn and Alan Bergman are “redefining” the Fox film efforts. They plan to cut back the number of Fox releases and focus what kinds of films come from Fox.
- Disney+ launches Nov. 12 for $7 a month
Twitch will stream Team USA basketball games
- Twitch is now the exclusive home for live streaming content from USA Basketball women's and men's teams at twitch.tv/nba. Twitch will stream all of the USA Men's National Team's exhibition games in the leadup to this year's FIBA Basketball World Cup. Twitch already streams G League games from the NBA as well as the NBA 2K League.
HBO will let you stream full episodes of fan-favorite shows for free
- HBO, this is just HBO, not HBO Max, has launched a site called https://humanreco.hbo.com/ that compiles fan picks of its shows and gives non-subscribers a chance to watch episodes for free. The site has more than 50 episodes available to watch.
‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ About Clinton Scandal A Go At FX With Sarah Paulson As Linda Tripp & Monica Lewinsky Producing
- FX announced the third season of American Crime Story will tell the story of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment of President Clinton. This series will be called Impeachment: American Crime Story. Sarah Paulson will play Linda Tripp and Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart) will play Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky herself is a producer on the series. The season premiere set for Sunday, September 27, 2020.
‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’ Could Go To Season 15 & 16 If Series’ Creative Team Is Up For It, FX Boss Says
- Season 14 of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia ties ABC’s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as the longest-running live-action comedy series. FX Networks Chairman John Landgraf told Deadline, "We will absolutely make more seasons of Sunny if the gang chooses to make more seasons of Sunny.”
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's new comedy series is an Amazon original
- Amazon bought the rights to Truth Seekers, a comedy-horror series from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Frost will play a paranormal investigator and Pegg will play a mysterious character named Dave. Production starts in September for the 8-episode run.
FX renewed Atlanta for a fourth season with production of season 3 and 4 scheduled to begin next spring.
‘The Crown’ Season 3 to Premiere in November
- “The Crown” comes back for its third season on Netflix on Nov. 17. Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, Tobias Menzies as Prince Phillip, and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret.
HBO Max & BBC Three Team On Rose Matafeo’s Millennial Comedy ‘Starstruck’ From ‘Catastrophe’ Producer Avalon Television
- HBO Max, remember that's Warner Media stuff combined with HBO yet to be launched, will partner with BBC Three on a six-part comedy called Starstruck,created by written by and starring New Zealand-born comedian Rose Matafeo. It tells the story of a millennial London woman working two dead-end jobs who accidentally sleeps with a movie star.
Leslie Jones will launch a one-hour stand-up comedy special on Netflix in 2020. Her last comedy special, Problem Child, was shown on Showtime on 2010.
Apple released a teaser for its drama The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell. It's coming this fall.
Eyes On
Brian: Extras, Preacher, Defcon
Tom: Cheers
Ken: Behind the Curve
On the Lookout: remastered Farscape
Front Lines
MoviePass Reportedly Changed User Passwords to Limit Access
-Business Insider reported August 6 that its sources said MoviePass CEO Mith Lowe ordered the company to reset passwords of users without their knowledge last year as the company was running out of funds in July. The number of MoviePass subscribers fell from more than 3 million last year to just 225,000 according to Business Insider.
Disney Confirms Disney Plus-Hulu-ESPN Plus Bundle For $12.99 A Month
- Disney announced it will sell a bundle of Disney+, Hulu basic (the one you pay for but has commercials) and ESPN+ for $12.99 a month. That's $5 a month less than you would pay for each one separately.
CBS Matches Viacom’s Stellar Quarter With Record Q2 Revenue And Profit Marks
- Viacom and CBS are very close to announcing a re-merger and both companies annoucned positive earings last week. CBS announced CBS All Access and Showtime contributed to a 13% increase in affiliate and subscription fee revenue for the quarter.The company says it is on track for its goal of 25 million subscribers combined by 2022. On the Viacom side, Pluto TV reported 18 million monthly active users as of the end of July, up 50%. and Paramount had a nice turnaround as well. Paramount's first window deal with Epix is about to expire, so look for those movies to jump to a new platform.
Viacom Chief Bob Bakish Touts U.S. Ad Growth, Pluto TV, Declares Paramount’s “Turnaround Phase Is Behind Us”
CBS Speeds Up Plans to Launch Local Streaming News Services
- CBS plans to accelerate the rollout of local versions of the CBSN news service in the 13 markets where CBS owns the local station. CBS launched a local version of CBSN in New York in December and in Los Angeles in June. Boston and San Francisco are planned by the end of the year with nine more versions total by 2020 including Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Denver, Miami, Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. The services are free and ad-supported available in the CBSN app, CBSNews.com, and local station's websites and apps.
‘Game of Thrones’ Creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Strike Overall Deal at Netflix
- Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and DB Weiss signed a multi-year agreement to write, produce and direct new TV series and films exclusively at Netflix. Amazon. and Disney had also been bidding for the team. As a result HBO has canceled the series Confederate which would have been produced by the pair and told the story of a world where the south won the civil war.
HBO’s controversial Confederate series is canceled as showrunners ink Netflix deal
Roku Surpasses 30 Million Accounts, Delivers Better-Than-Expected Q2 Results
- Roku beat earnings expectations and announced that it is being used by 30.5 million households every month. The company lost 8 cents a share compared to expectations of 23 cents a share. 67% of Roku's revenue was driven by advertising and services. Average revenue per user was $21.06. The company is now predicting to grow its revenue by 46% year-over-year.
Dispatches from the Front
I am not sure I agree that "rebranding" does anything to stop the bleeding of DirecTV or DirecTVNow. ... Carriage disputes, competition, etc , cost. Simply re-branding the service will not help that. ... If AT&T really wants to be successful I think they distance themselves from the brand (not paste their name all over it) and really push for a high quality, value based brand, one that people can truly understand the value. Add to all of this the launch of HBO+ and Disney+ and the competition is really going to kill AT&T who have historically not done well (adequately, maybe but not well) in competitive markets.
Very Respectfully,
- Gregory
Hey Killers!
Loved the commentary on the AT&T TV Now garbage. I was talking about it with my brother who works on the corporate side of telco...and he said something interesting.
While he agreed it was totally stupid, he said that AT&T just loves slapping their name in front of *everything* they sell, but on the corporate side, somebody along the way realized that this was dumb and way too cumbersome. So, the AT&T prefix just got shortened to “A.” You know what AT&T's VPN product is called? AVPN. Dedicated Internet Access? ADI. Switched Ethernet? ASE. So, if it were on the business side of AT&T they'd just call it "ATV Now,” which seems… *infinitely* better.
I pointed out that ATV is already short for All Terrain Vehicle… and yet it is *still* better.
- Evan
Hey guys,
I have a suggestion for a new show segment. Since you’ve been doing this for 5+ years now it would be fun to pull up a Primary Target from that same time 5 years ago and give an update on what has happened since. You could call it “Time Capsule” etc.
Thanks,
- Chris
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