Here is Why TV Apps Are Very Popular Now Days

When it comes to online video, people may not want to cut the cord. Instead, they want to take the cord with them. People are streaming broadcast television on their smartphones in record numbers, according to Adobe’s state-of-the-industry report on digital video viewing. 

 Online video has reached record numbers, according to the report, compiled by Adobe Digital Index, the marketing and research arm of Adobe. Mobile video viewing went up 57 percent over the same time last year, and overall online video was up 43 percent, representing more than 35 billion viewings. 

 Among the report’s more interesting findings are that TV Everywhere — a term for authenticated viewing of broadcast shows from channels you subscribe to on your cable or satellite network — is approaching mainstream use and is growing much faster than other online video sources like YouTube, Hulu or Daily Motion.

 However, Adobe’s numbers do not include Netflix, which has about 48 million subscribers worldwide, so cord-cutting might not be entirely off the table. 

 TV Everywhere apps include the very popular HBO Go, standalone channel apps like Watch ESPN, Cartoon Network, CNBC, Syfy and similar offerings. Cable and satellite providers also offer their own branded apps, like Comcast’s Xfinity TV Go, Time Warner Cable’s TWC TV and Dish Anywhere. Most of these apps were announced within the last two to three years, but have been steadily getting the rights to stream more content and have seen a heavy marketing push over the past year. 

 Authenticated TV viewing is more palatable to content providers than services like Netflix, because it encourages people to keep their ad-rich cable subscriptions, and gives them the benefit of streaming the TV they already pay for. Critics have, in fact, charged that TV Everywhere is little less than collusion between cable companies and rights holders. Nevertheless, as streaming television gets onto mobile devices, people appear to be gobbling it up. TV Everywhere viewing rose 246 percent (you read that right) over last year, said Adobe, driven mainly by interest in sports programming. (To be clear, those numbers do not include streams of the Sochi Olympic Games, which an Adobe analyst said would have skewed the numbers beyond recognition.) “Over one in five households are watching TV Everywhere content,” said Tamara Gaffney, an Adobe Digital Index analyst. “That’s really beyond early adopter.” Of course, the other thing that’s happened to push TV Everywhere growth is that these apps are actually starting to get some channels. Ms. Gaffney said TV Everywhere offerings had increased by 30 channels in just the last six months, as networks start to lower some (not all, but some) of their resistance to digital distribution. 

 The most common way for people to watch TV Everywhere content was with iOS apps. In fact, Adobe said, iOS apps just passed the browser as the most popular portal to streaming TV. Browsers remained the second most popular way, and Android apps were third. In another interesting twist, though, Adobe said viewing on game consoles and so-called OTT (over the top) devices increased by the highest percentage of any platform — 123 percent over last year. Granted, the amount of TV watched on those devices is still tiny: They have just 6 percent of the TV Everywhere streaming market, but that’s up from 1 percent last year.

Gaffney said most of that growth was in game consoles, although the category also included devices like Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast. Adobe said the numbers were too small to break out individual devices, but I’ll be curious to see if they continue to grow and how much add-on gadgets contribute to the numbers, as opposed to consoles.

TV Everywhere is still significantly less than everywhere, as even the industry itself admits, and the authentication process for watching shows is legendarily annoying.

But as that improves — and cable operators extend authentication to devices like Apple TV and Roku — it may be that the best way to cut the cord is to keep the cord.

Source : nytimes.com