This week, Light Reading discussed our first quarter earnings, highlighting our strong start to the year.
In other news, with the World Cup quickly approaching, Rapid TV News featured survey results showing 46 percent of US viewers believe watching the tournament on multiple devices is important, confirming growing multiscreen viewing trends. Additionally, The New York Times noted that consumers who watch television with a second screen are more engaged than those who don’t.
Los Angeles Times highlighted a new report by Nielsen revealing that while the average American home now receives 189 channels -- a nearly 50% increase over the last five years -- Americans still watch only 17 of those channels.
And, The Verge reported on data from the United Nations, projecting that nearly 3 billion people will have access to the Internet by the end of 2014, leaving 60 percent of the world’s population unconnected.
Check back next week for the industry’s latest news.
Arris Starts Off Year Strong (May 7) By Alan Breznick, Light Reading: Picking up right where it left off at the end of last year, Arris Group Inc. rang up higher than expected sales and earnings for the first quarter as its shipments of cable and IPTV set-top boxes, next-gen video gateways, wireless data gateways, next-gen Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) devices, and DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems all posted healthy increases.
2014 World Cup a bellwether for multiscreen TV (May 7) By Gabriel Miramar-Garcia, Rapid TV News: As fans of the Beautiful Game gear up for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, kicking off in Brazil in June, it appears that the event could be the first truly multiscreen World Cup.
Advertisers Seek a ‘Second Screen’ Connection With Viewers (May 4) By Annie Lowrey, The New York Times: More than 80 percent of smartphone and tablet owners use their devices while watching television, according to Nielsen. And in trying to reach these multitasking viewers who keep one eye on the show and the other on social media, advertisers are making up the rules as they go.
Television viewers stick with their channels, despite greater variety (May 7) By Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times: The average American home now receives 189 channels, according to an upcoming report from the audience research firm Nielsen. This represents a record high as well as a substantial increase from 2008, when the average home received just 129 channels.
The internet will have almost 3 billion users by the end of the year, UN report says (May 7) By Adrianne Jeffries, The Verge: The internet will have nearly 3 billion users, about 40 percent of the world's population, by the end of 2014, according to a new report from the United Nations International Telecommunications Union. Two-thirds of those users will be in developing countries.
