Disney, Charter and the Second Coming of TV Everywhere

Why This Time Could be Different

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DALL-E 3, prompt: “a television that was taken apart and put back together, held together by a band aid”

In June 2009, I sat in a press conference and watched Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts link arms (figuratively) to launch TV Everywhere and save the pay TV bundle. It failed.

In September, more than 14 years later, Charter and Disney resolved their high-profile carriage dispute with a deal that resurrects the basic premise of TV Everywhere: provide pay TV¹ subscribers more value for their dollar. Will it work any better this time? Lately, it’s been hard to find too many bright spots for the big media companies. This could be one. While it’s too late to save the pay TV bundle, there are good reasons to be more optimistic this time.

Tl;dr:

• In their push to grow their streaming businesses, the media conglomerates have left linear for dead. The only problem with that plan: linear makes all the money.
• The recent Charter-Disney distribution agreement resurrects the idea behind TV Everywhere (TVE): think about linear and streaming holistically, provide pay TV subscribers more value for their dollar and reduce churn.
• TVE failed for a few reasons: consumers didn’t understand the value of streaming at the time; it was a crappy consumer experience, including the need to navigate too many apps; and some distributors didn’t really want it to succeed.
• Several things are different now.
• Pay TV plus streaming is a “good bundle,” in the sense that consumers can clearly see the value of the components; there is clear empirical evidence that “good bundles” reduce churn, as supported by Antenna data on Apple One and the Disney Trio; a combination of linear plus streaming will probably remain the best solution for sports fans for the foreseeable future; the rise of FAST underscores the utility of lean-back linear TV that has been lost in the transition to SVOD; and a growing proportion of consumers think of linear TV and streaming as one holistic experience — it’s all just watching TV on an app.
• Another thing that’s different is the degree of urgency and unanimity that something needs to be fixed. The body language from the major participants in the value chain also suggest the rest of the industry may fall in line this time.
• As the industry coalesces around the need to “re-bundle,” one of the big questions is: who is the bundler? The existing pay TV distribution system is an obvious candidate and sitting right under the industry’s collective nose. It may not save linear TV, but it should help.

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