YouTube TV Takes The vMVPD Lead, Amazon To Bring IMDb TV To UK

1. YouTube TV Takes The vMVPD Lead

Several analyst firms including Lightshed and MoffettNathanson have proclaimed Google’s YouTube TV King of the vMVPDs. 

This is mostly guesswork as Google does not release actual numbers, but the consensus seems to be that YouTube TV has somewhere around 4 million subscribers to Hulu Live TV’s 3 million and Sling’s 2.5 million 

Why It Matters

Throw in Fubo and Direct TV Stream and vMVPDs have somewhere close to 10 million subscribers. That’s a pretty sizable number given that they had zero subscribers not all that long ago. (By contrast, Comcast, the largest MVPD, has around 19 million subscribers.) 

vMVPDs are going to be hot for a while because they are TV’s nicotine patch--a way for people to easily transition from having a full pay TV line-up to cutting the cord.

In fact, many people (and analysts) will say they’ve “cut the cord” when they switch to a vMVPD, which, while technically incorrect, is indicative of the mindset around the switch.

That is why we will see vMPVD numbers growing substantially over the next few years as viewers begin to realize the advantages. 

To begin with, even though vMVPD prices keep going up, they are considerably cheaper than traditional MVPDs. They tend to have better interfaces, work across a variety of devices and, most important of all, allow consumers to avoid the dreaded “input switch” every time they want to move from linear to streaming.

Never underestimate the appeal of being able to use a single remote.

They’re also available month-to-month which means consumers don’t feel ripped off by confusing hard sell “triple play” plans that saddle them with a two-year contract and a landline they don’t really want or need.

They’re also surprisingly still fairly under the radar for much of the population. 

Chances are high that anyone reading this is very familiar with vMVPDs and has been for some time, but people who are not in the industry are often fuzzy on how these services work and what they have on offer. 

As in they’re often surprised to learn that services like Hulu and YouTube have deals with all of the major network groups and that they won’t actually have to give anything up to make the switch. 

Which means that there is still plenty of room for growth as consumers, who are not nearly as fed up with cable TV as Silicon Valley would like them to be, will initially make the switch for the price savings and the convenience.

What You Need To Do About It

If you’re a broadband provider, this would seem to be a no-brainer: strike a deal with an existing vMVPD or build one of your own. Verizon, for example,  has already done this, striking a deal with YouTube TV.

One of the key factors holding consumers back from making the switch is that they don’t understand how they’ll get broadband if they give up cable and worry that it will all be even more expensive than what they gave up. But by providing them with a broadband-vMVPD bundle you can both get them past that hurdle while increasing customers retention.

Not to mention that you make the bulk of your money from broadband as it is.

If you’re Hulu Live TV, you’ve got a huge advantage over YouTube—all that Hulu programming is included for free. Maybe time to get more aggressive with your advertising and do some side-by-side comparisons.

If you’re all of the vMVPDs, time to up the marketing ante and focus on consumer pain points and what’s really stopping them from switching. You just need to be more explicit about things like having all the major network groups and how vMVPDs mean no longer having to switch inputs.

2. Amazon To Bring IMDb TV To UK

Amazon is about to launch its mysterious IMDb TV FAST service in the UK.

I say mysterious, because no one in the U.S. seems to have a handle on what IMDb TV is all about or where it fits in long-term with Amazon’s TV plans.

Why It Matters

One of the more confusing things about IMDb TV (at least for those of us covering the industry) is understanding why Amazon doesn’t do more to promote it.

Right now it often shows up in Amazon search results under “Prime Video” as in “this show is available for $1.99 on Prime or you can watch it for free with ads with your IMDb TV subscription.” 

All well and good, but if you click on “watch for free with ads” you don’t actually leave the Prime video interface, at least not online, which means that most viewers are not going to realize that IMDb TV is an actual thing and not just yet another random perk from Amazon you get along with free two-day delivery. 

In fact, I suspect that most people are unaware that Amazon owns IMDb, and assume that IMDb TV is a free subscription service from the app that Amazon has a deal for.

So while that part is confusing, what’s not is that Amazon is 100% using IMDb TV to test out its impressive ad serving, measuring and targeting capabilities. 

Given how many people pretty much buy everything from Amazon these days, the amount of data they have on consumers is astounding. There’s no guessing about intent either--they know exactly what you bought, how often and how much you paid for it.

So there’s that, and now they’re bringing it to the U.K., which would seem to be another step on the road to Total World Domination.

What You Need To Do About It

If you’re Amazon, give IMDb TV some love and do some brand building around it. It’s got originals and lots of programming and all, but as noted, I suspect a lot of people who watch it have no idea they’re watching it—they just think it’s the ad-supported arm of Prime, which, if you recall, also has a fairly extensive TVOD section, so the confusion isn’t all that unwarranted.

Having IMDb TV be a sub-brand of Prime is not a bad idea either, but you should probably pick a lane for the service and stick with it.

If you’re one of the other FASTs, keep your eyes on IMDb TV. Right now it mostly seems to be some sort of sandbox for Amazon’s TV ambitions, but they could easily flip a switch and make it a serious competitor. 

If you’re a viewer, there’s a lot of good stuff on IMDb TV from Bewitched to Lost to the entire Hunger Games series. There’s even an app, but given that it seems you can watch most of what’s on the IMDb TV app via your Prime app, it may not be worth the effort to set it up.