[opendtv] Re: That pesky HDTV niche market
- From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:54:30 -0400
I don't remember any of the details but the last time I checked it
looked like cable HDTV was priced such that it would rapidly gobble up
all the customers they managed to entice to digital cable. I don't
know if the PVR also requires digital cable but this would provide
another strong draw.
On the down side the price jump from limited basic to digital cable
seems to keep increasing. I suspect that for political reasons the
cable companies do not want to be seen charging much for HDTV so
instead they are bundling that cost into digital cable. But the net
effect may end up being that the usually false (but too common)
statement "digital_cable=HDTV" may eventually end up being mostly true.
- Tom
BenWebber@xxxxxxx wrote:
> John Golitsis wrote:
>
>
>>virtually all new digital cable customers are
>>going with HDTV service.
>
>
> I believe this is an unwarranted assumption. The Comcast first quarter
> earnings announcement doesn't actually say that. It does say:
>
> "We added 192,000 new digital subscribers ..."
>
> Elsewhere, it also says:
>
> "During the first quarter, 176,000 subscribers signed up for Comcast's
> HDTV service to finish the quarter with 469,000 HDTV customers, a 60%
> increase from the fourth quarter of 2003."
>
> Nowhere does it say that the new HDTV customers were _also_ new digital
> subs. It's likely that many of the folks signing up for HDTV were
> already digital subscribers.
>
> Down in the fine print we also find useful information for those
> interested in the bigger (business) picture:
>
> Comcast video services are now available to 40 million U.S. homes. Of
> those homes, 21.5 million subscribe to basic video services. Of those
> 21.5 million basic subs, 7.9 million also subscribe to the digital tier.
> Of those 7.9 million digital subs, 469,000 also take HDTV.
>
> The bottom line is that around 2.2% of Comcast video subscribers take
> HDTV. You can call it a premium market segment (that's really the
> correct term) if you don't like the term "niche".
>
> The current quarterly growth rate in HDTV takeup is very impressive, but
> it's not going to stay at 60% for too long. HDTV will be taken up quite
> rapidly by (relatively affluent) digital subscribers, and MUCH MORE
> SLOWLY by the far more numerous (and less affluent) universe of basic
> subs.
>
> The biggest challenge for cable operators (and the biggest driver of
> profits) is still in coaxing subscribers from basic to digital in the
> first place. There's no question that HDTV helps with this, but at this
> point it's icing on the cake. (And the DVR rollout will help Comcast
> even more, IMHO.)
>
> Regards,
>
> B.
>
> --------------------------------------
> Ben Webber benwebber@xxxxxxx
> 1414 W Byron St 1W 773-935-2112 (v)
> Chicago, IL 60613 773-935-8961 (f)
> --------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
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