anga_anga 10/05/2014 13:02 Page 8
US cable movie
consumption on rise
he quantity of movie content on
US basic cable hit a three-year high
in 2013, accounting for nearly 15%
of all airtime in 2013, up from 14% in
2011, according to a new report – Movies
on Basic Cable 2013 – from IHS
Technology.
However, fewer unique movies were broadcast in 2013 compared to the previous three
years, indicating that films were being rerun
more than ever before. Led by films from Fox, a
total of 89,623 hours of movie content was
shown on US
basic cable in
2013. This represented an
increase of
1,180 hours
from 88,443
from 2011.
The
research firm
describes this
gain as “significant”, especially in the context of overall movie hours
being made available by the medium. Even
though the total number of hours for movie
content fell slightly in 2012, the airtime percentage for movies on basic cable remained
nearly the same as in 2011, at roughly 14%.
This year, total airtime is projected to be
even higher, representing an increase in both
movie hours and airtime share.
“Cable networks are seeing the benefit of
airing movies that get better non-primetime
ratings than some TV shows during the same
time slots,” said Erik Brannon, senior analyst
for television media at IHS. “Drawing in
viewers during non-primetime hours is proving
valuable, especially during the summer months
when more people are at home during the day.”
Comedy was the genre of choice in both
2012 and 2013, unseating drama, which had
accounted for the largest number of hours in
2011. The most-played movie in 2013 was Fox’s
1993 release Mrs. Doubtfire starring Robin
Williams, which was played 66 times across five
networks, according to IHS data.
T
Coming soon
Newer content—i.e., movies unveiled after
2000—is considered more valuable. However, a
few marquee titles from the 1980s and 1990s
continue to enjoy repeat runs, because they are
cheap and unrestricted. In particular, the FX
channel has been very aggressive in acquiring
basic-cable first-run rights to many blockbuster
14 ADVANCED-TELEVISION.COM
movies, even securing those rights while movies
were still playing in theatres.
Independent studios accounted for 78% of
post-2000 movie airtime in 2013. In comparison, big-budget films from the major studios
take several years for their restrictions to loosen
and become widely available—a peculiarity that
doesn’t apply to the majority of independent
movies.
The top studios identified
For the third straight year Fox was the most
prolific producer of movies
airing on basic
cable, accounting for nearly
6.5% of all
movie airtime
in 2013. Warner
was in second
place.
Fox and
Warner are the
top two producers of movies on basic cable by a wide margin,
and are likely to remain in the lead for some
time to come. The two studios secured their
lead by having the luxury of outputting their
content on owned dedicated movie networks:
Fox Movie Channel and Turner Classic Movies.
Fox depends more on its movie network than
Warner, as 50% of Fox producer airtime was
aired on the Fox Movie Channel.
Both Viacom and Comcast/NCBU do not
have a movie channel on basic cable but field
movies to their properties and non-owned networks—to Comedy Central and Syfy for Viacom
and AMC Networks for Comcast/NCBU.
For its part, MGM fell out of the top five last
year because it produced no new movies, but
the studio continues to draw from the long tail
of its extensive catalogue. Sony, meanwhile
scored big as Ghostbusters claimed the most
replays in the third and fourth quarters last
year.
Disney prefers to keep everything in-house,
selling a big portion of its movie content to sister networks Disney Channel, ABC Family and
Disney XD.
Among basic cable stations, AMC remained
a key outlet for action, even in the face of great
success coming from original TV shows developed by the network such as The Walking Dead
and Mad Men. “AMC sees significant value in
relying on movie content to make up the majority of its non-primetime TV schedule,” Brannon
added.
ADB UnifyTV software
boosts multi-screen
ADB has unveiled UnifyTV, an
application environment that provides a ‘write once, run anywhere’
set of application programming
interfaces (APIs) for the development of multi-screen services.
UnifyTV software underpins ADB
and third-party user experiences/user interfaces (UX/UI) including ADB Graphyne – and
makes it easier for operators to
offer a consistent look and feel
across multiple screens for linear
TV, OTT, DVR and on-demand
content.
UnifyTV runs on ADB and thirdparty set-top boxes and media
gateways as well as iOS/Android
devices and PCs. ADB solutions
including Multi-Screen, MultiRoom and Graphyne now have
UnifyTV at their core.
UnifyTV’s multi-tier Software
Development Kit (SDK) makes it
easy for developers to build multiscreen applications and services. A
single set of standards-based APIs
in Javascript and C/C++ makes it
easy for applications and thirdparty services to be written for one
device and run on all platforms. Its
modular design is ideal for custom
software builds, while support for
HTML5 gives operators the flexibility to develop new multi-screen
services and easily move to a
cloud-based model when required.
For chipset vendors, the SDK
includes a proven hardware
abstraction layer with a porting kit.
The UnifyTV software also integrates easily with ADB Epicentro
PMP, enabling operators to
remotely manage devices on the
home network, u