Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

WWE Is Laying the Smackdown on the World

The market’s enthusiasm for WWE stems largely from its lucrative TV contracts, combined with its early success in direct-to-consumer streaming TV apps. In 2014 the company made a risky move, deciding essentially to cannibalize its traditional pay-per-view business. Instead of paying their cable companies one-time fees to see WWE’s marquee events—say, $44.99 for the Royal Rumble—fans would be encouraged to subscribe to a streaming video service, the WWE Network, and pay a monthly fee. After some early turbulence, the move is paying off. Roughly 1.5 million people now hand over $9.99 a month for the WWE Network, making it the 11th-most-popular streaming video service in the U.S., according to Parks Associates, and the second-most-popular, after Major League Baseball’s, in the “sports-related” category.

From the article "WWE Is Laying the Smackdown on the World" by Felix Gillette and Kim Bhasin.

Previously In The News

Best Buy Bets on Adults Remotely Monitoring Their Aging Parents

Fueling the interest in monitoring aging relatives remotely are some compelling demographics. By 2020 about 45 million Americans will be caring for 117 million seniors, spending on everything from foo...

Smart Light Bulb Owners Turn To Amazon Echo, Google Home

Google Home and most recently Amazon’s Alexa can tell whose voice is talking to it so it can respond to the right person, making the voice assistants even more personally tuned. Around 11% or so of...

OTT Churn Rates Pass 50%

TV customers have a high rate of starting and stopping many new OTT services. Parks Associates says that with the exception of Netflix and Amazon Prime, OTT services experience churn rates exceedin...

22% Plan To Get A Smart Speaker This Year

New research from Parks Associates found that more than one in five consumers plan to purchase a voice-controlled smart speaker with a personal assistant in 2017. Interest in the category is growin...