The market’s enthusiasm for WWE stems largely from its lucrative TV contracts, combined with its early success in direct-to-consumer streaming TV apps. In 2014 the company made a risky move, deciding essentially to cannibalize its traditional pay-per-view business. Instead of paying their cable companies one-time fees to see WWE’s marquee events—say, $44.99 for the Royal Rumble—fans would be encouraged to subscribe to a streaming video service, the WWE Network, and pay a monthly fee. After some early turbulence, the move is paying off. Roughly 1.5 million people now hand over $9.99 a month for the WWE Network, making it the 11th-most-popular streaming video service in the U.S., according to Parks Associates, and the second-most-popular, after Major League Baseball’s, in the “sports-related” category.
From the article "WWE Is Laying the Smackdown on the World" by Felix Gillette and Kim Bhasin.
The Apple TV came in fourth, behind Amazon's Fire TV, Google's second-place Chromecast and Roku's pack-leading set-top devices, in Parks Associates' tally of streaming device sales in 2014. Amazon and...
The connected car and smart home markets are both at an early stage of development, but in many ways they have been growing in parallel. Both markets are enabled by the falling costs of sensors, netwo...
“The decision to launch as its own separate multi-stream service was influenced by our customers. Two of the top requests we receive are for a multi-stream capability and for FOX programming. As baseb...
Before news broke Friday that AT&T has stopped bleeding TV customers, Parks Associates analyst Brett Sappington tried to put a finger on what sort of subscriber numbers for the company’s new streaming...
