It seems like all of the largest cable companies and telcos either have skinny bundles or are working on them. In a recent blog I talked about the Comcast skinny bundle they are calling Stream TV. It’s a lineup containing mostly major network channels plus HBO. It’s likely to be controversial because Comcast wants to exclude usage on the bundle from any data caps while counting data usage for watching Netflix and other OTT offerings.
As has been anticipated since they bought DirecTV, AT&T plans to launch their skinny bundle in January. The company hasn’t released the details yet but recently gave some hints about what might be in it. For one thing, through DirecTV the company has the ability to air current season shows, including the latest episodes. AT&T may be offering different options to wireless and wireline customers. CEO Randall Stephenson was quoted recently saying that the bundle will “turn some heads”, but I guess we’ll have to wait until January to see what that means.
Their chief rival Verizon Wireless launched Go90 earlier this year. The package is an interesting mix that Verizon says is aimed at Millennials. Verizon describes the package as halfway between YouTube and Netflix. It has a lot of unique content produced by YouTube stars but also carries some traditional programming content. The service is currently free to Verizon wireless subscribers but is expected to soon have a premium tier.
On the landline side, Verizon offers a package called Custom TV. That bundle is sold in combination with 25 Mbps Internet service for $65 a month, and includes a lineup of about 35 channels plus a few additional add-ons options available. The package has been so popular that Verizon reports that one third of their new customers in the second quarter of this year opted for the skinny bundle. While Verizon says that might hurt revenue targets, they affirmed what many have thought in that they expect sales of skinny bundles to increase the bottom line. It makes sense that the skinny bundles, while smaller, are more profitable than the giant bundles of hundreds of channels.
CenturyLink has also announced that they will launch a skinny bundle in early 2016. They say that their main motivation is to sign up new customers without the need for a truck roll, and so they might offer both a skinny bundle as well as the full TV line-up over the web. This will save them on settop boxes and other costs associated with being a full-service video provider.
There are other companies also considering skinny bundles. For instance, Frontier has reported that they are talking to programmers about skinny bundle options. There was an announcement in October that Tim Warner Cable was trialing a skinny bundle but I haven’t seen any press on that since then. CEO Rob Marcus has been quoted several times in the last six months saying that he doesn’t think his customers are looking for a cheaper alternative.
We’ll have to wait a while to see what kind of interest the public has in the skinny bundles. The companies like Verizon that have already launched skinny bundles are not reporting customers counts for the new products, making it hard for the rest of the industry to understand the customer demand.
The skinny bundles are clearly an attempt to try to keep cord cutters on the big company networks. But just about all of these big companies publicly say that cord cutting is not a concern for them. There has to be some concern that offering smaller bundles will invite customers to downsize, but if what Verizon admits is true, it might be that there is more profit in skinny bundles than in the giant cable packages – in which case you can expect to see more skinny bundle options.