The Carmel Group

This comprehensive 2007 study is the product of three of The Carmel Group’s in-house databases. First is The Carmel Group’s historical archive, dating back to 1997-1998, when The Carmel Group was the first consultant/analyst globally to produce industry projections concerning the U.S. Digital Video Recorder (DVR) industry. Second is the combined historical data compiled from two surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006. The data collected by The Carmel Group in May 2005 was based upon surveys of 2,586 U.S. respondents; the 2006 data collected by The Carmel Group was based upon surveys of nearly 1,800 U.S. respondents in January and February of that year. And finally, we focus on the current data from almost 2,200 U.S. respondents, from our 2007 survey that was run during February-March 2007. In both the 2006 and 2007 surveys covering the DVR and related industries, 76% were identified as DVR-Users, while 24% were Non DVR-Users. Also, in both those years, The Carmel Group received responses from respondents representing every state of the union and several U.S. territories. In addition, The Carmel Group interviewed dozens of key industry participants, focused on the developers and manufacturers of existing DVR products and services.

Many, if not most, who I consulted with through the many months leading to the March 24, 2008, U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Sirius-XM merger-to-monopoly decision, believed it would favor the merger. But just about everyone was nonplussed by the form it took. This is because not only were there no conditions, caveats, or concerns expressed, but the rationale used to justify it was just plain bizarre. Indeed, this satellite radio decision gives new (and derisive) meaning to the words “monopoly,” “competition” and “antitrust regulation” in America.

Chaotic change -- to the tune of billions of dollars -- is rapidly churning the troubled waters of advertising, retail marketing, cablecasting and broadcasting. It is also churning the traditional relationships between the ad side and the operational/telecast side of these industries. Yet, as the rather trite (but true) old adage “where one door closes, another opens” conveys, these players must begin wedding their businesses to digital signage in order to better survive in the Brave New World of Giving Consumers Relevance.

Twelve years ago, the satellite guys needed a better mouse trap in order to lure cable subscribers to their nascent, all-digital video services.

The same holds true for today’s telephone companies, namely, AT&T and Verizon, as they venture into a television jungle heretofore controlled solely by those satellite guys (with their 29 million video subscribers), and by the cable guys (with their 63 million video and “bundle” subs, when you count voice, audio-video and telephony services).

There’s an awful lot of turmoil surrounding the U.S. multichannel video (MCV) and related industries these days, which raises an obvious question for readers attuned to consumer electronics (CE): What does that future hold for the CE industry, especially sales at retail?

The first annual ISIS-NYC, circa 2006, is an opportune time to address one of the satellite industry’s premier developments, albeit one that has not yet occurred. That event is the pending sale of Rupert Murdoch’s controlling interest in DirecTV to his opponent and sometimes ally, Liberty Media’s Dr. John Malone. That transfer of ownership will mean a lot of change for the satellite industry and for consumers across the multichannel universe.

Publications

Articles (22)

Presentations (4)

White Papers & Studies (15)

Press (5)

Blog (9)

Digital Video Recorders: Time in A Magical Box Present Trends + Future Projections 2007

What Can The FCC Do Now With The Sirius-XM Mess?

Cablecasters Capturing Digital Signage: Giving Consumers Relevance

Blog

The Telcos’ Better Mousetrap?

Consumer Electronics and The Competitive Future of Cable vs. DBS vs. Telco

High-Flying Multichannel TV Financials: The Impact of Dr. Malone’s DirecTV Acquisition