A forecast from The Diffusion Group last week calls for the rate of cord-cutting in the U.S. to nearly quadruple over the next 5 years compared to the rate for the prior 5 years. TDG expects by 2025 pay-TV subscribers will contract by 36% from 2020, compared with a 9.5% contraction experienced in the 2015-2019 period.

Overall TDG sees legacy pay-TV providers ending 2020 with around 76 million subscribers. TDG also sees virtual pay-TV providers ending 2020 with around 11 million subscribers.

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I’m pleased to present the 535th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

By far the biggest story of the week was Quibi’s quick demise. On today’s podcast Colin and I discuss where Quibi went wrong in its pricing, content and audience strategies and what it might have done differently. It’s far from clear if these steps would have made a difference to Quibi’s ultimate outcome, but we both think they would have improved its odds of success.

We also ponder the question, with the list of failures growing, is it possible to succeed with a pure play mobile video startup?
 
Click here to listen to the podcast (24 minutes, 45 seconds)

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It’s no surprise to anyone that the TV industry is being roiled by huge viewership changes accelerated by the pandemic. Samba TV’s new State of Viewership Quarterly Report for Q3 provides useful insights about the key trends that unfolded in the quarter, following an unprecedented first 6 months of the 2020.

Among Samba TV’s key findings:

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Quibi and Snap appear to be two companies moving in opposite directions in mobile video. Quibi, the high-profile, well-funded startup, has belatedly broadened its scope beyond mobile, enabling its app on Fire TV, Apple TV and Android TV, a recognition that a pure-play mobile video offering from scratch is unsustainable, especially during Covid.

The Information also reported yesterday that Quibi has unsuccessfully shopped its content catalog to NBCU and Facebook and that founder Jeffrey Katzenberg has told people he may have to shut down the company. This follows a WSJ report from late September that Quibi was seeking a buyer for the whole company. Previous reports revealed that initial advertisers were seeking to revamp their deals, due to smaller audiences and lagging app downloads.

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