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Tech Briefs

Dec 9, 2002  •  Post A Comment

TechTV’s interactive channel, TechTVi, has performed well on Cablevision’s iO digital platform, the network announced last week. The service launched in April and has served nearly one video-on-demand clip for every four subscribing households, placing it in the top 25 percent of the 22 enhanced television channels offered by iO, according to TechTV. TechTVi provides on-demand access to TechTV’s technology information, news and entertainment programming.
Satellite snaring cable customers
Satellite’s gain is cable’s loss, according to new findings from Leichtman Research Group. In the second and third quarters of this year, EchoStar and DirecTV gained more than 1 million customers combined, while cable’s top 10 operators lost more than 500,000 subscribers. Satellite actually added 2.7 million new subscribers, offsetting a loss of nearly 1.7 million subscribers. But satellite companies shouldn’t be celebrating, because their gain is coming at a high cost, since churn rates are at 20 percent compared with 10 percent in the first five years of the service, said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst with the research firm. Cable’s churn rates (without moves) are in the single digits. Cable operators and satellite providers need to look at increasing their subscriber counts but also at retention and revenue per subscriber, he said.
nCube interconnects with L.A.’s Adlink
nCube Corp. signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Los Angeles interconnect Adlink to deploy nCube’s Digital Ad Insertion system. The contract will allow the Los Angeles interconnect to be the first fully digital program-insertion-capable system in the country, according to nCube. The nCube system allows digital-to-analog and digital-to-digital content insertion.