Top 5 Tech Articles You Might Have Missed – Week Ending March 25, 2016

Variety reported that Comcast is now selling bundles of its cable TV, Internet and phone services through Amazon to showcase its offerings to millions of online shoppers. Comcast bundles on Amazon...

Variety reported that Comcast is now selling bundles of its cable TV, Internet and phone services through Amazon to showcase its offerings to millions of online shoppers. Comcast bundles on Amazon include Xfinity Internet Plus, which offers about 30 local broadcast TV channels and HBO and broadband.

Rapid TV News reported that blim, Televisa’s newly launched subscription video on demand (SVOD) service across Latin America, has struck a deal with BBC WorldWide to acquire more than 200 hours of video on demand (VOD) programming. As part of the agreement, audiences across the continent will have access to BBC content on demand and on multiple platforms.

According to the NPD Group’s Connected Intelligence Smartphone and Tablet Usage Report, 81 percent of all U.S. smartphone users now stream video on their devices, reported Multichannel News. This usage is primarily driven by users under the age of 25, who spend twice as much time watching video content on YouTube and Netflix mobile apps compared to users over the age of 25.

In other news, according to the BARB Establishment Survey, 24 percent of UK households used Netflix, Amazon Video or Sky’s Now TV in Q4’15 compared to 14 percent in Q1’14, reported Broadband TV News. The survey also noted that Netflix continued to lead the UK SVOD market.

Finally, according to a recent study by Deloitte, over 90 percent of U.S. consumers multitask while watching TV, reported MediaPost. Most popular multitasking activities of millennials included web surfing, chatting on social networks and texting. Additionally, the study noted that less than 25 percent of all the consumers’ multitasking activities were related to the program being watched.

  1. Amazon.com Starts Selling Comcast Xfinity TV, Internet Service (March 21, 2016) By Todd Spangler, Variety: Amazon.com is now selling a range of Comcast Xfinity products and bundles, as the cable giant seeks to get its cable TV, Internet and phone services in front of millions of online shoppers.
  2. Televisa's blim inks BBC VOD content deal (March 22, 2016) By Juan Fernandez Gonzalez, Rapid TV News: Shortly after its launch across Latin America, Televisa's over-the-top (OTT) platform blim has announced a major content deal with BBC Worldwide.
  3. Most Smartphone Users Tap In to Stream Video (March 22, 2016) By Jeff Baumgartner, Multichannel News: Younger Set Spends Twice the Time Watching Netflix, YouTube.
  4. One quarter of UK homes are SVOD subscribers (March 23, 2016) By Julian Clover, Broadband TV news: A quarter of UK households now claim to subscribe to one of the three main subscription video on demand services.
  5. Millennial TV Watchers Average 4 Non-TV Activities (March 23, 2016) By Wayne Friedman, MediaPost: TV consumers that don’t multitask while watching TV are now a tiny minority.