September 21, 2012
America's TV Everywhere Boom Set to Begin in 2013
Despite America's largest cable TV operators like Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), and Cox Communications continuing to report net video subscriber losses in recent quarters, their stocks have recently set new 52-week highs while Netflix (NFLX) has set a new 52-week low. Television content price inflation is soaring through the roof, which is making it difficult for NFLX to renew content distribution deals with many content providers like Starz. NFLX lost Starz earlier this year and was forced to pull the plug on about 1,000 popular movies and TV shows. NFLX's deal with A&E is now up for renewal and NFLX is expected to lose about 80% of their A&E programming.
NFLX faced a large customer backlash after announcing major pricing changes last year. Instead of offering both online streaming and their DVD service for $9.99 per month, NFLX separated both services and priced them both individually at $7.99 per month. More price increases will be ahead for NFLX in the near-future if they want to have any hope of being profitable in 2013. NIA predicts that when NFLX is once again forced to raise prices, they will experience a large drop in their customer base as cable, satellite, and telco TV companies begin to win back past cord-cutters by heavily promoting their new TV Everywhere portals that allow consumers to watch any TV show, at any time, across any Internet-connected device.
CMCSA's CFO Michael Angelakis told investors yesterday at a Goldman Sachs Conference in New York that about 5 million of their 22.1 million customers are now using TV Everywhere. He called the London Olympic Games a game changer, with nearly 10 million people authenticating their devices to watch any Olympic event live or prerecorded on their laptops, desktops, iPads, and iPhones, from any location at any time. Angelakis stated that CMCSA's main focus right now is working with programmers to get the rights to stream as many TV programs from as many TV networks through TV Everywhere as possible.
According to Needham & Company's Laura Martin, TV Everywhere will add about $12 billion in annual advertising revenues to the U.S. TV ecosystem over the next few years. These numbers will dwarf any near-term revenue from other online digital video platforms like Hulu and YouTube. TV Everywhere could increase the market value of companies in the U.S. TV ecosystem by $24-$48 billion.
Viacom (VIAB) just launched their own TV Everywhere portals for MTV, BET, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and SpikeTV. To access each network's TV Everywhere portal you simply need to add a "/tve" after their web address. For example, MTV's TV Everywhere portal is located at http://mtv.com/tve
Just this past week, VIAB announced a huge TV Everywhere distribution deal covering all of their TV Everywhere portals with TWC. VIAB has also reached TV Everywhere distribution deals with Verizon Fios and Suddenlink. Both Verizon Fios and Suddenlink have also launched their own TV Everywhere portals, operated by Synacor (SYNC), which allow their subscribers to watch TV Everywhere content from VIAB and dozens of other providers.
FOX just entered the TV Everywhere space and is now offering on FOX.com and Hulu.com the ability for authenticated pay-TV subscribers to watch brand new FOX programming that aired on TV less than 8 days ago. FOX just announced a TV Everywhere distribution deal with CableOne - owned by Washington Post (WPO) - which is their first TV Everywhere distribution deal with a cable TV company. CableOne this past weekend launched their own TV Everywhere portal operated by SYNC. FOX has also signed TV Everywhere deals with Verizon Fios and Dish Network. SYNC's technology is being used to authenticate Dish Network subscribers on FOX.com, Hulu.com and all other TV Everywhere portals.
FOX's President of Distribution Michael Hopkins predicted yesterday at the Next TV Summit in San Francisco that "2013 will be a big year for TV Everywhere." Hopkins said, "If we are back year next year at this time, I could see the amount of content tripling or quadrupling." Currently FOX has TV Everywhere deals with a handful of distributors but expects to be "95% there next year."
NIA believes that over the next 6-12 months, we are going to see every major pay-TV operator make it a priority to add multi-screen TV Everywhere rights to their content distribution renewal contracts with all major content providers. By this time next year, TV Everywhere will literally be TV Everywhere!
In NIA's opinion, SYNC is the company best positioned to benefit from the TV Everywhere boom that is ahead in 2013. SYNC currently has the largest national footprint in the pay-TV industry. After CMCSA, TWC, and Cox, SYNC operates the online TV Everywhere portals of the majority of America's other cable TV companies including Charter (CHTR) (4th largest cable TV company), Suddenlink (7th largest cable TV company), Mediacom (8th largest cable TV company), CableOne (9th largest cable TV company), WOW! (10th largest cable TV company), Knology (12th largest cable TV company), Atlantic Broadband (13th largest cable TV company), Armstrong Cable (14th largest cable TV company, Midcontinent (15th largest cable TV company), Metrocast (17th largest cable TV company), Blue Ridge (18th largest cable TV company), and Buckeye (21st largest cable TV company).
SYNC also operates the TV Everywhere portal of Verizon Fios, the largest telco TV company, 6th largest overall pay-TV company, and fastest growing pay-TV company in the U.S. Of America's 25 largest pay-TV companies, SYNC operates the TV Everywhere portals of 13 of them. These 13 pay-TV companies have a combined 13.5 million subscribers. SYNC also operates the online portals for CenturyLink (CTL), the 3rd largest telecommunications company in the U.S., as well as smaller broadband providers like Windstream (WIN) and TDS (TDS). All together, SYNC reaches 23 million subscribers and their portals receive 20 million unique visitors per month, giving them the largest presence in the TV Everywhere space.
SYNC just announced this week that they have signed a deal with CMCSA, the largest cable TV company in the U.S., where CMCSA will be selling local advertising space on SYNC's portals. SYNC also announced this week the signing of a second huge deal with NCC Media (owned by America's top 3 cable companies CMCSA, TWC, and Cox) to sell regional advertising space on SYNC's portals. By allowing advertisers to highly target their advertisements to local and regional markets, SYNC is now in a position to grow their RPMs very significantly and rapidly.
SYNC has their own national display ad sales footprint and their business has been booming. SYNC's ad impressions in the second quarter were a record 10 billion, up 72% year-over-year. SYNC's average unique visitor is now spending a lot more time on its portals to watch TV Everywhere and use other services. SYNC's average unique user viewed 500 ads in the second quarter up 25% from 400 ads in the first quarter. SYNC's RPMs in the second quarter were up 10% from their 2011 average. SYNC's RPMs are expected to increase significantly in the fourth quarter due to the holiday shopping season and their two brand new huge deals with CMCSA for local and regional advertising.
SYNC has helped some of its clients lead their industries in subscriber growth so far in 2012. CMCSA, TWC, and Cox reported net video subscriber losses in the first quarter, while SYNC's pay TV clients Verizon Fios, CHTR, Suddenlink, and CableOne reported net video subscriber gains. While America's two largest telecommunications companies AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) lost broadband subscribers in the second quarter, SYNC's client CTL reported the largest broadband subscriber gains in the telecommunications industry.
According to Compete.com's Internet traffic estimates, many of SYNC's TV Everywhere portals received record unique users in August including SYNC's biggest revenue generating portals that they operate for CHTR and CTL. It is likely that the Olympics gave SYNC's portals a large traffic boost in the months of July and August. Of the 100 million Americans that had access rights to view NBC's TV Everywhere Olympic content, SYNC's TV Everywhere authentication technology provided access to approximately 25 million of them, with nearly 40 pay-TV operators utilizing SYNC's authentication technology for the Olympics.
SYNC has made small gains the past three days in a row and looks ready for a HUGE breakout any day now. At any time now, SYNC could bounce by 50%-80% within 2-3 days. SYNC is being priced at $7.60 per share as if it will miss 3Q expectations and issue weak 4Q guidance, but NIA is very confident that SYNC's 3Q results and 4Q guidance in October will far surpass expectations. A huge positive earnings surprise could be ahead next month! If NIA is right, SYNC could skyrocket back to $15-$18 very quickly!
NIA is not an investment advisor and is not making any target prices or financial projections. Never invest based on anything NIA says. Always do your own research and make your own investment decisions. NIA never recommends to buy or sell any stock.
Disclaimer: NIA currently owns 486,035 shares of SYNC. NIA intends to sell these shares in the future and can do so at any time. NIA reserves the right to add to its SYNC position at any time.
NIA is not an investment advisor. This email is not a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold securities. Never make investment decisions based on anything NIA says. This email is meant for informational and educational purposes only and does not provide investment advice.
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