1. V O L U M E 3 6 N U M B E R 1 0 W W W . M U L T I C H A N N E L . C O M M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 $ 6 . 9 5
CURIOUS DISCOVERY
1 Color - 0 Cyan / 100 Magenta / 99 Yellow / 4 Black
plus
Charter’s Plan B:
Buying Bright House?
Q&A: HBO Now Will Be
A ‘Win-Win,’ Says Plepler
Why One Midsized MSO
Is Cutting Back on Video
JOHN HENDRICKS’S NEW DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER SERVICE AIMS
TO ACCELERATE VIDEO’S OVER-THE-TOP EVOLUTION

2. 2 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
agenda
Online ViDeO
MCN ONE ON ONE
cBS’s Sean McManus (l.) and
Turner’s David Levy talk hoops
as “March Madness” ensues at
multichannel.com/March16.
FTC to DirecTV: Ditch Deceptive Ads
WantssatelliteProvidertoPay‘ManyMillions’inrefunds
BY JOHN EGGERTON
W
ASHINGTON—ThewaytheFed-
eral Trade Commission sees it,
“creepy” Rob Lowe is also crooked
Rob Lowe.
Not the actor, of course, but the DirecTV ad
campaignthatpaintscableascreepy,paranoid,
socially awkward and eminently ditch-able.
That ditch-and-switch campaign is instead a
bait-and-switch campaign, the FTC suggested.
DirecTV said the FTC is flat-out wrong.
The commission said the satellite opera-
tor is guilty of several counts of deceptively
advertising the cost of its satellite-TV ser-
vice and wants DirecTV to pay a potential
settlement of many millions of dollars in re-
funds to consumers to settle a complaint
filed last week in the U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of California.
The FTC decision was bipartisan and
unanimous — 5-0.
The FTC said DirecTV’s dis-
counted price pitch failed to
make it sufficiently clear that a
two-year contract was required, that the price
escalatedsignificantlyinthesecondyear,orthat
consumers would have to opt out of the “free”
premium channel offer and they would be au-
tomatically billed after the first three months.
DirecTV’s deceptive conduct and omission
of facts in ads dates back to at least 2007, the
regulator said. “DirecTV gave customers false
and misleading information,” FTC Bureau of
Consumer Protection director Jessica Rich
told reporters. “The company tells consum-
ers to ditch cable and switch to DirecTV to
save money, and its advertisements claim con-
sumers can receive TV packages for as low as
$19.99 per month for 12 months.”
ThecomplaintisnotfocusedonwhatDirec-
TV tells consumers, but rather what it doesn’t,
said Rich, adding that the satellite-TV provider
“hid” important terms in order to “trick” con-
sumers into switching
from cable, and that fine
print disclosures don’t
cut it.
There had been thou-
sands of consumer com-
plaints, Rich said.
She said the ballpark
dollar figure the FTC was
looking to get for con-
sumer redress was in the
“manymillionsofdollars,”
givenDirecTV’s20million
subs at the end of 2013.
She said many of those
customers were affect-
ed in ways including pay-
ing an early termination
fee of as much as $480,
being charged higher price in the second year
— as much as $45 per month more — and not
knowingtheyhadtocancelfreeHBO
serviceafterthefirstthreemonths.
“The FTC’s decision is flat-out
wrong and we will vigorously de-
fend ourselves for as long as it takes,” DirecTV
responded in a statement.
A DirecTV official speaking on background
said the company has made some improve-
ments to the ordering process, including get-
ting rid of some potentially confusing rebate
offers,andthatitallowscancellationoftheoffer
within 30 days without penalty. Most DirecTV
customers place orders by phone, rather than
online,andthedetailsarecommunicatedorally
with customers asked to acknowledge they
understand them, the spokesman said. )
theftCtookaimatclaimsindirectvadsfeaturing“creepy”roblowe
andothercable-subscribingalteregosforthepopularactor.
ANALYSIS
TitleII,TakeII
WASHINGTON — The Federal Commu-
nications Commission last week finally
released the final language on its Feb. 26 vote
to reclassify broadband ISPs as telecom-
munications services subject to common-
carrier regulations.
AsadvertisedbytheRepublicans,itincluded
language that suggested the FCC could pivot
toward more regulations in the future — the
National Cable & Telecommunications As-
sociation was already branding it regulatory
“regime change,” but “for now” was basically
banning throttling, blocking and paid priori-
tizationbybothwiredandmobilebroadband
services.Itwasclearfromthelanguage,asthe
FCC had telegraphed, that the ISPs were the
snakes in the garden, in need of oversight so
they did not bite the consumers or edge pro-
viders that rounded out the virtuous circle.
Also included were the general-conduct
standard that could potentially capture var-
iousbusinessmodelsandthecase-by-casere-
view of interconnection issues as potential
network-neutrality violations.
ThefinalordernowgoestotheFederalReg-
ister,whereafteritispublished,likelyintwoor
three weeks, critics of the order (and there are
many)willhave30daystopetitiontheFCCfor
reconsiderationor60daystofilesuitincourt.
— John Eggerton

3. multichannel.com | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | 3
agenda
Charter’s Plan B,
As In Bright House
By MIKE FARRELL
I
t has been an interesting side
story to the pending Comcast-
Time Warner Cable merger
drama: what will happen to Bright
House Networks, the 2.1 million-
subscriber cable operator whose
business relies heavily on shared
programmingcontractswithTWC?
One possible outcome has
emerged with reports that Bright
House has held talks about being
acquiredbyCharterCommunications.
Butanydealwouldhappenonlyaf-
tertheComcast-TWCmergeriscom-
pleted, according to Bloomberg. That
process that has taken longer (and
seems less likely to get accomplished)
than originally thought.
If Comcast and TWC don’t merge,
Charterislikelytotryagaintoacquire
TWC. It was Charter’s original offer
that led Comcast to make a bid, one
that TWC accepted.
Again, per the Bloomberg re-
port, Charter would pay stock val-
ued as much as $12 billion for Bright
House, the second-largest private-
ly owned cable firm behind Cox
Communications. That figure uses
a similar per-subscriber valuation
as TWC in the Comcast deal, so it
might be high.
But Bright House, which has its
biggest regional operations in the
Tampa and Orlando, Fla., areas, is
well-managed and has markets that
would mesh well with Charter’s ex-
isting systems. It also operates in
Indianapolis, Detroit and Bakers-
field, Calif., near existing Charter
properties.
Charter declined to comment.
Bright House said in a statement:
“While we have had conversations
withmanypartiesabout[theComcast-
TWC] transaction, we do not have
an agreement with anyone regarding
future plans for Bright House.”
BrightHouseemergedasaseparate
companyin2003,comingoutofafor-
mer joint venture between Advance/
Newhouse and Time Warner. TWC
has the right of first offer to buy
Bright House, MoffettNathanson
principal and senior analyst Craig
Moffett said last week, so if talks are
being held with Charter, TWC has
presumably taken a pass.
But that situation could change
if TWC’s merger with Comcast falls
apart and if TWC still wants to fend
off a Charter takeover. Acquiring
Bright House and its added leverage
could make a deal less attractive to
Charter, Moffett noted.
Charter also is underscoring it
wants more cable — even though,
as Moffett noted, Bright House has
at least 30% overlap with Verizon’s
FiOS TV, second only to Cablevision
Systems. )
1 Curious Behavior
Ever-inquisitive John Hen-
dricks’s next path of discov-
ery is leading him over
the top (see cover
story, page 14).
2 ‘HBO Now’:
It’s Time
In a Q&A, HBO
chief Richard
Plepler makes
the case for why
the new OTT ser-
vice won’t cannibalize
the premium network (see
page 4).
3 Advanced Advertising
Programmatic-buying, ad-
dressability and ratings
metrics were among the
hot topics at our conference
(see page 6).
4 March Madness
As CBS and Turner eye a
bounceback year for their
NCAA basketball cover-
age, a look at key metrics
for March Madness (see
page 8).
5 Ratings Intelligence
Take a deep dive this week
into March Madness view-
ership on TBS, TNT and
truTV (see ratingsintel.
com).
6 CIO Spotlight
Meet Chuck Hurst of
Scripps Networks
Interactive and
he a r how
he ma n-
ages to
keep the
content
flowing
a t t h e
busy pro-
grammer
(see special
report, page 10).
7 Weather Changes
The Weather Channel’s loss,
on FiOS TV, is AccuWeather’s
gain, at least for now (see
multichannel.com/March16).
8 Going Video Lite
Cable One is continuing
down an unusual path for
a cable-television provider,
de-emphasizing video (see
page 20).
9 Views From Pluto
The folks at Pluto TV think
OTT viewers deserve curat-
ed content — and a grid-like
guide, too (see page 25).
10 Grin and Bare It
Emcee Ben Gleib got into the
bodypainting spirit at GSN’s
upfront (see page 30).
10 stories that matter
in this issue
10 ciO sPOtliGht
13 cOntent
17 PeOPle & calenDaR
18 FReeze FRame
20 Rules
22 Finance
25 PlatFORms
28 cOmmunitY
29 ViewPOint
30 thROuGh the wiRe
sOuRce:SEcdocuments
liGhtsOut?
Bright House Networks,
reportedly an object of Charter
Communications’ desire, has assets
that could command $12 billion.
Video customers 2.1 million
Fixed Broadband
customers
1.9 million
Voice customers 1.1 million
homes Passed 4.3 million

4. agenda
4 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
Plepler: Nothing to Fear From HBO Now
Calls OTT PrOduCT a ‘Win-Win’ fOr neTWOrk, disTribuTOrs
MCN: Have you been satisfied with the
feedback that you’ve received for HBO
Now launching on Apple TV in April?
Richard Plepler: I think we’ve gotten a
lot of great feedback. I’ve said over and
over again there is such an opportunity
out there to grow our business in multi-
lateral ways with our partners and with
Apple and eventually with new partners.
But I don’t think that this in any way
interferes with the exciting avenues that
we can go down together with our cur-
rent partners.
And when you look at the opportunity
before us — which is reaching millions of
homes who currently can’t get HBO — and
you say to yourself, “Wow, this presents
an opportunity for our distributors to
package HBO Now and to sell it to their
broadband-only consumers,” why is that
not a win for the consumer, a win for our
partners and a win for us? No one has been
able to explain to me why that isn’t so.
MCN: Cable operators are nervous
about HBO Now. They are looking at a
declining video business. What do you
say to them?
RP: First of all, I go to our data which is
pretty unequivocal: 97% of people who have
HBO are not leaving the bundle and they’re
not cord-shaving. So one of the best inocu-
lations if you are a distributor that you can
have is to have HBO in your bundles — low
cost, triple-play … that’s No. 1.
No. 2, I think when you get HBO into a
broadband-only package or a low-cost video
package, you have a much greater chance of
upgrading that consumer, because people
with HBO inside their bundles are very
happy customers. And as people come to see
the user-friendliness of HBO Now and they
come to really appreciate the versatility of
the product, you’re turbo-charging the value
of the subscription.
No. 3, most people really prefer a video
bundle. They want it affordably priced,
they love having HBO in it, but that’s their
preference. If we can work together to
expand those packages and also to offer to
the 10 or 11 million broadband-only homes,
who may never be subscribers anyway, a
stickier version of that broadband-only
product, it’s a win for the consumer, a win
for our partners and a win for HBO.
MCN: How much of what we know as
traditional cable programming is going
to go to this form of direct-to-consumer
delivery?
RP: This is not a binary dynamic, it’s a multi-
lateral dynamic, and the key is to have great
content and great brands to go where the
customer is going and to give the customer
optionality to enjoy your content where, how
and when they want and to do it in a fair
value package. And what we’re saying to our
partners is I think it’s pretty axiomatic that
our content is terrific, so use us to grow.
Everybody needs to be dexterous. We need
to be dexterous and our partners need to be
dexterous.
MCN: Is there a reason why there isn’t a live
HBO feed as part of the HBO Now service?
Will there be at some point down the line?
RP: We’re working toward that technologi-
cally and we’re working to get that up as
quickly as we can onto the product.
MCN: What’s your expectation for sub-
scribers in the first year?
RP: We don’t have any great visibility into
the first year and I would tell you this —
this decision was not made to affect 2015
revenues. This was a strategic decision
made in the long-term interests of our net-
work so that we had maximum flexibility,
maximum optionality going forward. We’re
looking to the future. )
Moments before Apple’s glitzy announcement last Monday (March 9) of
its high-tech Apple Watch, HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler took
the mammoth stage at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco
to confirm what many in the crowd already knew: The HBO Now
standalone over-the-top service would roll out through Apple
TV and other Apple-based devices next month.
HBO, which helped usher in the era of TV everywhere with
the 2010 debut of HBO Go, now stands at the precipice of what
could be a mass migration of cable networks offering their own
over-the-top services directly to consumers. As cable operators and other
multichannel video programming distributors continue to bleed tradi-
tional video customers, the bold move sparked some legitimate concerns
that the service would cannibalize the premium channel’s subscribers.
Days after he left the stage to let the pundits chew on his plans,
Plepler spoke with Multichannel News editor in chief Mark Robichaux
and programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the value proposi-
tion of HBO Now to both potential subscribers and the premium net-
work’s existing distribution partners.
Q&A
XINhUa
HbOCeOrichardPlepler
shakeshandswithapple
chairmanandCeOTimCook
beforeannouncingHbOnow’s
aprilrolloutontheiOsplat-
formduringtheappleWatch
eventinsanfrancisco.

6. agenda
6 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
BY JEFF BAUMGARTNER
NEWYORK—ProgrammaticTV“isnotarace
tothebottom,”ZacharyChapman,ESPN’svice
president of digital and publishing sales, said
on a panel at the “Advanced Advertising: Prof-
itingFromaTargetedAudience”eventherelast
Wednesday (March 11).
Ratherthanasameanstosqueezemoreval-
ue from underperforming inventory, panelists
at the Multichannel News and B&C-sponsored
event said the use of programmatic-style tech-
nologies and processes to sell and buy TV ad-
vertising should be viewed as a way to drive
premium value across a broader scope.
ESPN has been using an automated ap-
proach to sell separate inventory — isolated,
30-second spots that appear on-set during
SportsCenter, the network’s flagship show.
ESPN will only sell that inventory if the bids
it receives come in at the
right value.
“The idea is to drive the
market to a higher price …
based on audience and au-
tomation,” Chapman said
on a panel moderated by
B&C business editor Jon
Lafayette. The ads sold via
that programmatic process
have resulted in a “signifi-
cant premium,” he noted.
Selling TV advertising
programmatically is still
a nascent concept, but it has already begun to
show up in national tentpole television events,
includingtherecentSuperBowlandtheOscars,
usingsystemsfromWideOrbitandTubeMogul.
Whileit’stooearlytosayifthoseeffortsgen-
eratedaspecificlift,itdidsuccessfullyshowthat
theautomated,machine-to-ma-
chineprocesscouldworkforsuch
major TV events, Jes Santoro,
senior vice president of enter-
prise sales at TubeMogul, said.
Advertisers that took part
— Mondelēz, for example,
bought two local 15-second
spots on NBC in Erie, Pa., that
ran during the Super Bowl
— also extracted some other
value out of it: positive PR for
being an advertising innova-
tor, Eric Mathewson, founder
and CEO of WideOrbit, said.
Programmatic TV also gives advertisers and
theiragenciestheabilitytobemorenimbleand
to use their “scatter dollars to be more oppor-
tunistic,”Simulmediavicepresidentofproduct
marketing Ari Osur said. )
Programmatic TV Is a Premium Play
Panelists: techniques are a Means to Drive aD-Buy value
Data Powers Political
NEW YORK — With strong tallies in the last two
election cycles, the total political TV ad pie could
reach$3billionin2016,thankstoaddressabilityand
targeting, especially with cable spot buys.
That was a key takeaway from a wide-ranging
panelonaddressabilityduringthe“AdvancedAdver-
tising: Profiting from a Targeted Audience” event.
“This category has historically been about five
to 10 years behind the rest of the business,” Com-
cast Spotlight vice president Dan Sinagoga told
moderator Kent Gibbons, executive editor of Mul-
tichannel News. “But in this space it’s way ahead.
No one uses more data to improve their results.”
The scoreboard is starting to reflect that shift.
Comcast stats show the total political ad haul
hit $4 billion in 2012 and 2014. The 2016 predic-
tion is $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion, $3 billion of that
on TV.
One hot sector is spot cable, due to how late in
races targeted inventory is needed. About 75% of
all buys come after July 4, with the bulk happen-
ing post-Labor Day.
— Dade Hayes, Broadcasting & Cable
BY MIKE FARRELL
NEW YORK — Audience
metrics should go beyond
the traditional age and gen-
der information of the past,
measurement-industryexec-
utives on an “Advanced Ad-
vertising: Profiting From a
Target Audience” panel said.
“Theadvertiserwantsasimplesegmenta-
tionthattheycanputintoplay,”Allantexec-
utivevicepresident,communicationsTVand
media Eric Schmitt said on the panel mod-
erated by Multichannel News editor-in-chief
Mark Robichaux. He said he believes some
money is leaving television in favor of more
precise alternatives that provide more gran-
ular audience definitions.
Whileadvertisershaveacknowledgedthat
they are willing to pay a premium for such
information, measurement companies are
facingchallengesindeliveringit.Partofthat
problem is assembling data from lin-
ear TV viewing, VOD, SVOD, online
and mobile, all measured in different
ways by different companies.
“It’s going to require new ways of
looking at the TV marketplace,” said
Rentrak president of national tele-
vision Chris Wilson, adding that
the idea is to take set-top box data,
streaming information, and the like
and combine it in a way to understand the
total audience.
Nielsen senior vice president product
leadership, national and cross-platform
television audience measurement Brian
Fuhrer said it is important to take infor-
mation several different sources, including
from traditional TV devices, set-top boxes
and over-the-air antennas, as well as com-
puters and game consoles.
“I have seen more change in the past
year than at any time in my career,”
Fuhrer said. )
Buyers: Make Metrics More Specific
allant’sericschmitt:
clientsseek“simple
segmentation.”
esPn’sZacharychapman:
Programmaticadshavegener-
ateda“significantpremium.”
marKrEINErTSON

7. agenda
multichannel.com | M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S | 7
Erica SchmidtofMediabrands(l.)andTodd Gordon(c.)ofMagnaGlobalwithmoderator Jon Lafayette,businesseditorofB&C,ontheopeningkeynotepanelattheAdvancedAdvertisingeventinNewYork.
Chris Monteferrante (l.) of AT&TAdworks and
Dan Sinagoga of Comcast Spotlight confer prior
to their panel on Addressability.
NBCUniversal
executiveVP, digital
advertising sales
Scott Schiller is
interviewed for
the closing keynote
session.
MitchellWeinraub(l.)ofDishNetwork,withComcast
Spotlight’sMelissaKennedyandViacom’sAriTan.
Takingpartinthe
Metricspanel(l.tor.):
Eric Schmitt,Allant;
ChrisWilson,Rentrak;
Brian Fuhrer,Nielsen;
Howard Shimmel,
Turner,andJed Meyer,
OMD.
Multichannel News and B&C on March 11 co-hosted “Advanced Advertising: Profiting From
aTargeted Audience,” an afternoon of industry panels at New York’s Roosevelt Hotel. For
more coverage of this event, visit multichannel.com/March16.
PHOTOSBYMARKREINERTSON

8. agenda
8 | M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S | M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
While UConn’s 60-54 win over Kentucky
inthe2014titletiltdidn’tregisterashighly
as Louisville’s triumph over Michigan the
prioryear,CBSandTurnernettedthesec-
ond-bestaverageviewershipforthetour-
neysince2005.CBS,TBS,TNTandtruTV
combinedtoaveragea6.5U.S.household
ratingand10.5millionviewersperwindow,
perNielsendata.Thatwasdown3%from
the6.7ratingandoff2%fromthe10.7mil-
lionwatchersfromthe2013event.
Turner’s first regional finals and Final
Four coverage resulted in the four most-
watched college basketball telecasts in
cable history, topped by the Final Four
matchups.UConn-Floridanetteda6.9rat-
ing(8.2cablemark)and11.7millionwatch-
ers; Kentucky’s last-second win over
Wisconsingenerateda9.2(11.0cable)and
16.3millionwatchersacrossthemainTBS
feed plus “teamcasts” on TNT and truTV.
Adsweresoldacrossallthreetelecasts..
Alltold,the2014FinalFouraveraged14
millionviewers,an11%declinefrom2013,
whenthematchupsairedonCBS.
Ad spending on the NCAA Men’s Division I
Basketball Championship touched $1.15 bil-
lion for the 2104 tourney, a 1.5% uptick from
the2013versionofMarchMadness,accord-
ing to estimates from Kantar Media.
That should expand
significantly with this
year’s tournament. CBS
executive VP, sports
sales and marketing
John Bogusz said on
March10atNCAAMedia
DayinNewYorkthatthe
effortsofthebroadcast
network and Turner’s
sales team will yield a double-digit rise in ad
revenue for this year’s event. Bogusz said
inventory remained throughout the differ-
ent stages of the tourney — reports put the
sell-through at 95% —but he dismissed the
notion that “Kentucky premium units” were
being held in reserve as the Wildcats contin-
uetheirpursuitofperfection.Unitpricingfor
the April 6 championship game has pushed
pastthe$1.5millionmark.
It’s time for the nation’s annual bout of March Madness and “brack-
eteering.” By the time you read this, the 68-team field for the NCAA
Men’s Basketball Championship will be set, and the national sports
conversation will center on whether the Kentucky Wildcats can be-
come the first men’s team since the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers to go
undefeated. In the fifth of their 14-year, $10.8 billion media rights
partnership, CBS Sports and Turner Sports will once again cover
all 68 games on traditional TV and via streaming platform “NCAA
March Madness Live.” Here, are some key media metrics to ponder
before one team cuts down the nets at Lucas Oil Stadium in India-
napolis on April 6.
— Mike Reynolds
Wildcat Run Good News for Turner, CBS
UNBEATEN KENTUCKY SHOULD HELP NCAA RATINGS TO REBOUND
Ratings Rundown
MadisonAvenueMadness
SOURCE: Nielsen
CHAMPIONSHIPGAME
RATINGS:2005-14
TEAMS(WINNER
LISTEDFIRST)
DATE
PERSONS2+
(INMILLIONS)
NorthCarolina-
Illinois
4/4/05 23.9
Florida-UCLA 4/3/06 17.5
Florida-OhioState 4/2/07 19.6
Kansas-Memphis
(OT)
4/7/08 19.5
NorthCarolina-
MichiganState
4/6/09 17.6
Duke-Butler 4/5/10 23.9
UConn-Butler 4/4/11 20.1
Kentucky-Kansas 4/2/12 20.9
Louisville-Michigan 4/8/13 23.4
UConn-Kentucky 4/7/14 21.2
LEXINGTONHERALD-LEADER/ZUMAPRESS
Lastyear’stitletilt
betweenUConn
andKentuckywas
downfrom2013,
butthetournament
overallaveragedits
second-bestratings
since2005.
MEDIASPENDINGONNCAATOURNAMENT
NATIONALTVADS:2005-2014*
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 TOTAL
AdSpend(millions) $479 $504 $525 $648 $598 $623 $782 $1,095 $1,117 $1,134 $7,505
No. of Unique
Advertisers
91 102 125 102 81 83 78 86 89 89 279
SOURCE: KantarMedia;includes pregame, gameand postgameprogramming
*
Since2011, everytournamentgamehasbeenairednationally,producingmoreadinventoryandcontributingtotherevenueincrease versus earlier years.

9. agenda
Turner Sports, CBS Sports
and the NCAA have tipped
off an enhanced version of
streaming platform NCAA
MarchMadnessLiveasthey
look to eclipse last year’s
record performance.
Theredesignedappshow-
cases a sleeker design, im-
provednavigation,agreater
emphasis on social media,
an all-new GameCenter
experience and a new “run”
game. New sections will
alsofocusonprovidingfans
with more content on the
tournament and this year’s
68 combatants than ever
before.
Hania Poole, senior di-
rector, product manage-
ment and operations at
March Madness Live, said
the 2015 version of the
streaming platform is
geared toward being
“much more of a com-
panion experience.” The
enhanced NCAA March
MadnessLivemoreeasily
melds live game stream-
ing with archival video,
tournament-field-tied
rankings and statistics,
plus social networking
elements, Poole said.
As has been the case,
the CBS contests are
available for anyone to
stream. However, au-
thentication is required
for the games airing on
TNT, TBS and truTV.
To click through to
March Madness Live,
visit multichannel.com/
March16.
— Mike Reynolds
NCAA March Madness Live Tips Off New Features
SOURCE: Omniture, Conviva
STREAMINGTHEMADNESS
YEAR
UNIQUE
VISITORS
LIVE
UNIQUES
LIVESTREAMS STREAMCONSUMPTION
2014 13.6million 10million 70million 15millionlivehours
2013 12.1million 9.1million 49million 14.1millionlivehours
2012 4.3million 3.8million 18.7million 4.6millionlivehours
SOURCE: Omniture, Conviva
MOST-STREAMEDGAMES
Thetopfivemost-watchedgamesacrossdigitalplatformsfor
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10. 1 0 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
specialreport CIO SpOtlIght
Coping With Content’s Complexities
ScrippS’S chuck hurSt deliverS Media acroSS platforMS
MCN: What part of the business do you
oversee at Scripps?
Chuck Hurst: I am responsible for all of
our enterprise media management, videos,
still images, recipes, closed captions and all
the distribution to our business partners
for those products. That includes our own
digital group, as well as external partners
that we engage with to provision and
display our video.
MCN: How do your distribution con-
tracts today differ from a couple of years
ago, and how is content delivered and
stored through your unit?
CH: One of the biggest changes in the
industry is the advent of IT-distributed
content, whether that’s over-the-top,
whether that’s sell-through to entities
like iTunes, or whether that’s SVOD like
Amazon.
That next-day de-
mand for multiplatform
distribution has forced
us to increase our net-
work. We’ve also had
to increase our stor-
age and we’ve had to go
out and get transcod-
ing resources. Even our
transfer capability —
the ability to push that
content out to all of our
providers — has forced
us to increase all [our IT
resources].
Let me give you an
example: In 2006, we
were pushing out about 200 hours of con-
tent a year. Last year, we pushed out 30,000
hours of content. And the quality of video
that’s going out the door today has dram-
atically increased.
The other big change that has come out
of that has been in our business process-
es. Broadcast has always been king — and
it still is, by the way — but the digital side
of the house has become equally mission-
critical. There’s a real natural partnership
between broadcast operations, IT and a con-
tent sales organization in the way we deliver
that content in the timeframe we do.
MCN: How do you break down the busi-
ness unit silos of IT, broadcast engineering,
affiliate relations? What do have to do to
make sure everyone is on the same page?
CH: Customer expectations are forcing that
integration of business
functions, because
you can’t satisfy those
expectations with a
single group.
[For example] our
affiliate group is re-
sponsible for con-
tent distribution deals
and they deal not only
with the [tradition-
al multichannel dis-
tributor] affiliates,
they deal with iTunes
and Amazon and the
other providers we
choose to exhibit our
content.
The broadcast operations group — who
are really the experts on video quality, vid-
eo handling and the video formats we need
to have — needed to reach into the IP-de-
livered world. The affiliate group has done
a great job of engaging with us as they get
deals. They bring them in, we evaluate the
technical specifications, we talk about the
metadata, we talk about the video spec and
we come back to them with recommenda-
tions for changes to the ways that we can
make this work. And that has been a very
effective cycle for us.
MCN: I get the impression the content
requirements and the way content is
delivered to various new distributors —
Netflix, Amazon, Apple — varies. Is that
the case?
CH: Yes, and in some cases, wildly. The
current digital distribution market is very
As content distribution channels continue to expand in the United States and
abroad, the business of formatting and delivering that content has become an in-
creasingly complex minuet. As vice president of media and content delivery
for Scripps Networks Interactive, Chuck Hurst and his team bring together
broadcast operations, IT and affiliate sales, making sure Scripps’s content is
delivered to the correct distributor in the correct format at the correct time.
Multichannel News contributor K.C. Neel spoke with Hurst about the intri-
cacies involved in that daily dance.
Q&A
“There’s a real natural
partnership between broadcast
operations, IT and a content
sales organization in the way
we deliver that content in the
timeframe we do.”
CHUCK HURST, SNI
PeRsOnnel File
chuck hurst is vice president of
media and content delivery for
Scripps Networks Interactive,
workingwithhGTV,DIYNetwork,
Food Network, cooking channel,
Travel channel and Great amer-
ican country to define strategic
capabilities for media manage-
ment and business-to-business
distribution of content. he joined
Scripps in 2004 as VP of systems
development and began his ca-
reer as a software engineer and
technical lead at Eastman Kodak
in rochester, N.Y., in 1985.
y

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12. 1 2 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
dynamic. The broadcast market has a rela-
tively fixed set of deliverables, but that’s
not true in the digital world. There is also
a constant escalation of the quality and
everyone wants a slightly different flavor
of the video. So even if they all want Apple
protocols, they want different features
or they might have a different bumper or
trailer. It’s very hard to get standards, even
internally, as we look across the providers.
We’ve had to stitch together commercial
applications, custom applications and
integrate those together to give us a very
flexible, dynamic environment where we
can make changes right away. We’re sup-
porting around 22 different receivers right
now. That will probably grow to be about
26 by the end of the year and each one of
them will be a relatively different product.
MCN: Are there outside IT applications
that you can purchase or subscribe to
that help you with all of that?
CH: Certainly, there is a growing body
of providers that will entirely outsource
your media preparation. There is a real cost
tradeoff on that because those obviously
are not cheap resources to employ. Our IT
group has fit in with our media operations
group and our broadcast operations group
to create an automated workflow while
reducing the manual intervention we have
to do to get content out the door.
MCN: How are you storing all this data?
How many hours are you storing right
now? Are you using the cloud to store
your product?
CH: Well, hours and bytes are different.
From an hours perspective, let’s say epi-
sodes, I think we’re about 45,000 episodes
of standard def and somewhere around
20,000 hours of high-definition video. And
then you add onto that some of the digital
flavors that we store.
In terms of bytes, we’re sitting at about
1.3 Petabytes of digital storage for our video
archive. That will probably grow this year
to about 2 PB. And that’s all on an internal
disk we store here inside our own data cen-
ter facility.
We use cloud storage in a very limited
aspect right now. We have a rotating set
of assets we take up to the cloud for a
particular job and then bring those down.
So we really have only about 60 Terabytes
of storage on the cloud right now. Cloud
storage will grow, but right now, all of our
storage is pretty much internal.
MCN: What will it take to transition to
cloud storage and what are its advantages?
CH: We can still expand with the internal
system we have in place right now. Still,
the cloud and the cloud infrastructure are
an integral part of what we want to do in
the future. I expect we will maintain hybrid
operations, meaning we’ll do operations
both internally and in the cloud and then
add some level of synchronization back and
forth for that.
The big driver for the cloud is certainly
going to be time to market. There are some
things you can just do more rapidly in the
cloud. We could transcode the entire ar-
chive to a new flavor that we want to use,
or carve off part of that collection for a new
opportunity overseas. Global access is a big
driver for using the cloud.
Certainly, cost is a challenge right
now. Trying to move up a 2-PB archive
into the cloud is going to be expensive.
And it’s going to be an operating ex-
pense, as opposed to a capital invest-
ment, which hits your bottom line in
the year you spend that.
MCN: How do you measure success?
What does that mean for your unit?
CH: Whether you are in broadcast
operations, IT or digital, you really have
to measure yourself against the business
metrics that your business partner is be-
ing held to. For us, that’s been a conver-
sation around on-time delivery, making
sure that we meet all the contractual ob-
ligations. It’s also about cost: What’s the
actual cost for us to deliver an hour to
an end provider and end user? It’s been
a refreshing conversation and it’s forced
the IT team to examine their processes
and the way they measure themselves.
MCN: What’s the biggest challenge for
you going forward? What does your busi-
ness look like in 18 months from now?
CH: The biggest challenge for any IT group
right now is the tremendous amount of
pressure to respond more quickly to the
business opportunities coming in the door
and to be able to operate more efficiently.
There is continual pressure to respond
to the market and deal with the changes
that are needed but, at the same time, stay
within your budget and head count.
So where are we going to be 18 months
from now? It’s obvious viewer fragmenta-
tion is an ongoing issue in the industry.
There are more ways every day for people
to consume video. That means more
platforms, more formats, more delivery
cycles to get out there. We must also re-
main focused on our brand and on quali-
ty. It’s going be a real challenge to continue
standing out in the market because there
are so many different sources of informa-
tion. And there is certainly a technolo-
gy component to in the way people find us,
how they see us, and what they associate
us with. )
CIO SpOtlIght
Chuck Hurst away from the office last September, on
vacation with his wife in Banff, B.C.

13. multichannel.com | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | 1 3
Composite BlaCk HispaniC asian-ameriCan
Q4 ’14 Q4 ’13 Q4 ’14 Q4 ’13 Q4 ’14 Q4 ’13 Q4 ’14 Q4 ’13
OnTraditionalTV 149:14 155:32 206:39 218:01 121:11 123:25 89:14 92:13
WatchingTime-ShiftedTV 15:26 14:40 13:18 11:31 10:15 9:20 9:54 10:37
Using A Game Console 8:39 7:54 8:42 9:14 9:19 8:20 6:07 5:27
Using the Internet on Computer 29:44 27:44 35:06 28:13 23:39 21:20 41:23 34:35
Watching Video on Internet 10:29 7:34 15:50 10:09 10:44 9:03 12:15 13:30
Watching Video on Smartphone 1:42 1:23 2:15 2:01 2:12 1:54 2:25 1:39
Using DVD/Blu-ray Device 5:22 5:21 5:27 6:00 5:06 5:27 4:27 4:04
content
BY R. THOMAS UMSTEAD
Destination America today (March 16) will
rolloutarefreshedlogo,anewon-airgraphics
package and new image spots emphasizing
its focus on Americana-themed content.
While most cable networks are looking
to narrowly focus their brand messages,
Destination America wants to broaden
its identity in a “fresh and fun” way to en-
compass numerous genres including travel,
sports food and real estate, general manager
Marc Etkind said.
The strategy seems to be working from a
ratings standpoint.
A network-record number of viewers—
some 226,000 — made the trek to the 60
million-subscriber Destination America in
2014, per Nielsen. It also showed year-to-year
primetime gains in the key demographics of
adults 18-49 and 25-54.
That primetime audience
isn’t as large as parent net-
work Discovery Channel, with
1.1 million viewers, or even fel-
low Discovery digital network
ID, with 811,000 viewers in the
daypart. But Destination America’s 18%
year-over-year growth rate in primetime
for 2014 was the higher than Discovery’s
other networks.
“We’re about American entertainment and
fun with content from barbecue to wrestling,
along with lots of great American locations
like Yellowstone and Grand
Canyon, so we wanted our
package to reflect the di-
versity of American travel,”
Etkind said.
Destination America also
pinned down record prime-
time ratings highs in January, fol-
lowing the Jan. 16 launch of TNA
Wrestling’s weekly series Impact
Wrestling, which moved to Destina-
tion America after a nine-year run
on Spike TV. The series is averaging
nearly500,000viewerseachweekon
a live-plus-seven-day basis, for each
Friday-night premiere, per Nielsen.
It’s been three years the environ-
mentally themed Planet Green was
rebranded as the food, home and
travel-focused Destination America.
Since then, the network has broad-
ened and expanded its content mix
with more mass-appeal shows like
Impact Wrestling.
The network will continue to
build on its real estate and proper-
ty programming with the recent renewals of
freshman shows Buying Bayou and Timber
Kings, which profiles the development of log-
based mansions.
Etkind said Destination America doesn’t
see any one specific network as a main
competitor, but vies for viewers against
the many general-entertainment services
targeting adults 18-54.
“We see ourselves as a broader entertain-
ment network,” he said. “We’re just trying
to find passionate viewers, and we know we
have that for our biggest shows.” )
Star-Spangled Rebrand
Destination ameriCa resets as ‘FresH,’ ‘Fun’
Destination america will tout shows like Ghost Asylum
with a refreshed on-air identity.
source: Nielsen
Crossing Cultures, Crossing Platforms
Multicultural groups watched less traditionalTVin Q4 of last year, as african-american and hispanic video viewing
on theWeb and mobile devices was up significantly, per Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for fourth-quarter 2014.
monthly time spent by medium: users 2-Plus in hours: minutes
Destination America will
play up the Americana
aspects of its programming
with a new on-air presence
starting today (March 16).
TAKEAWAY

14. 1 4 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
BY JEFF BAUMGARTNER
he tectonic plates of the TV world are
shifting and few can feel it like John
Hendricks.
Hendricks, the cable pioneer who
founded Discovery Communications
andturneditintoawildlysuccessfulvideo
empire worth $17.5 billion, has broken ranks with the com-
pany he startedto make a new bet on the streamingworld:
a multiscreen, over-the-top subscription service called
CuriosityStream,whichlaunchesthisWednesday(March18).
Billed as the “world’s first on-demand, ad-free content streaming
service delivering premium factual content in the areas of science,
technology, civilization, and the human spirit,” CuriosityStream will
market a handful of tiers based on the quality of the video resolution
— $2.99 per month for standard definition; $3.99 per month for 720p
HD; $5.99 for 1080 HD; and $9.99 per month for 4K. CuriosityStream
will start off with a library of more than 800 titles, and feature
original content from such partners as the BBC, NHK, ZED, Terra Noa
and Flame Distribution.
“We kind of root for Netflix the way I used to root for HBO, because
HBO was really good for cable,” Hendricks said. “We’re hopeful
of reaching people who have a streaming connection one way
or another.”
Hendricks, who retired as Discovery’s chairman last May, no
longer has to fret about maintaining a legacy business while also
trying to solve the OTT riddle. He’s now free to go full-bore with
a direct-to-consumer service.
TAKINGTHE ‘NEXTSTEP’
“My interest moving forward is trying to develop for this next big,
evolutionary step in television,” he said. “It was hard to do it with
one foot in the cable world.”
In many ways, CuriosityStream is the embodiment of Hen-
dricks’s long-held view that television would eventually shift to an
on-demand model — something he used to refer to as “file-serve tele-
vision.”
Hendricks tested the idea in the early 1990s with Your Choice TV,
a “near” video-on-demand service for movies and hit TV shows like
60 Minutes, Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld. The service, which relied
on cable systems having the required channel space to devote to the
offering, was tested in about 20,000 homes in eight markets. In addi-
tion to selling titles for $1, Your Choice TV also kicked the tires on an
$8-per-month subscription plan.
“We saw the future,” Hendricks recalled. “It was amazing. The peo-
ple loved it in those markets.”
While the infrastructure for a scalable video-on-demand product
was still in development at the time, the business side of the equation
also needed solving. Networks were happy to experiment
with Your Choice TV, Hendricks said, but they also feared
what it might do to their existing linear TV business.
“The rights situation was just too difficult to handle at
the time,” he said. “Networks were afraid of it — what if
people lost the urgency to show up at 8 o’clock on Sunday
night to watch 60 Minutes?”
Hendricks took another big lesson away from the ex-
perience. “In the end, I learned that it’s very difficult to
launchanewplatformwhenyouhaveentrenchedbusiness
interests,” he said. “If you’re entrenched in broadcasting,
it’s hard to think about devoting the time and energy and the distrac-
tion of threatening your legacy business by starting cable channels.”
And, until recently, broadcasters and cable programmers have
been reluctant to launch direct-to-consumer OTT plays for
similar reasons — fears such moves could backfire and damage
a business that has flourished on the dual-revenue stream of
advertising dollars and affiliate fees.
But attitudes have changed dramatically as the traditional pay TV
business is assaulted by a surge of online video competition, led by new
standalone services such as HBO Now. MVPDs are staring down such
rivals as subscription VOD services and a new class of “virtual” multi-
channelvideoprogrammingdistributors,whilealsofacingasmall-but-
growing cord-cutting movement. The bottom hasn’t fallen out of the
pay TV market, but cracks are forming in the foundation.
The U.S. pay TV universe actually added customers (101,000) in
the fourth quarter of 2014, but that growth didn’t keep pace with
the rate of new household formation, according to a report from
MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett, indicat-
ing that cord-cutting (and the number of “cord-nevers” who’ve avoided
traditional pay TV service) “appears to have markedly increased.”
“On the surface, all is calm,” Moffett wrote, adding that, on a trail-
ing 12-month basis, it appears that 1.4 million homes have cut (or never
had) the cord — the highest total during such a span. On a cumula-
tive basis, since the first traces of cord-cutting surfaced in 2010, 3.8
T
coverstory
Curious Behavior
John hendricks’s new direct-to-consumer service
aims to accelerate video’s over-the-top evolution
Discovery
Communications
founder and cable
pioneer John Hendricks
is making a big bet
on over-the-top video
with his latest venture,
CuriosityStream.
TAKEAWAY
“My interest moving
forward is trying to
develop for this next
big, evolutionary step in
television. It was hard to
do it with one foot in the
cable world.”
JoHN HENDRiCkS, CURioSiTYSTREAM

15. multichannel.com | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | 1 5
million would-be pay TV homes now fit into this category, he added.
Indicators are everywhere. A recent Horowitz Research survey of
2,000 multiplatform viewers found that 20% of respondents who cur-
rently have multichannel services said they are likely to cut the cord
— more evidence that a segment of consumers won’t be sticking with
their current distributors.
These findings have helped to make the case for programmers and
broadcasters — from premium services like HBO and broadcasters
such as CBS — to pursue or launch direct-to-consumer offerings
that replicate services via broadband, or provide a slimmed-down,
targeted subscription-based OTT offering. (For more, see table and
Platforms, page 25.)
And analysts see more of this on the horizon, making it likely that
2015 will be remembered as a watershed year for OTT.
“The writing’s on the wall,” Colin Dixon, chief analyst and founder
of nScreenMedia, said. “Kids content is one of the areas that is feeling
the push more strongly than other content types at the moment,”
he added, referencing Nickelodeon’s launch of the Noggin OTT
SVOD service, the recent debut of a kids-focused app from YouTube,
and Netflix’s long-standing kids-optimized interface.
“Kids just take to [OTT] like a duck to water,” Dixon said. “Now the
pressureforserviceslikeHBOandShowtimetogetonlineishugenow.”
Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates, said he’s
tracking between 60 and 70 different OTT services that exist today
that will fit in as consumers continue to show a willingness to self-ag-
gregate video. Content providers, he said, are pushing ahead because
they “don’t want to be the last one to the party, or not be there at all
when things start to pop.”
And broadcasters and cable nets are pivoting to OTT while also
keeping their legacy businesses on track.
“My feeling is that they are damned if they do or damned if they
don’t,” Dixon said. “Their audiences are moving anyway.”
Andtheyareincreasinglymovingbeyondthe“C3”window,whereby
consumers watch a show within three days of its original broadcast.
In its “Video Monetization” report for the fourth quarter of 2014,
FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned ad technology company, highlighted
that just 28% of all TV viewing occurs within three days of a show’s
linear air date, while 64% occurs after a week. That strongly sug-
gests that a large number of consumers are using OTT to catch up.
Parks Associates, meanwhile, found that nearly 20% of U.S. broad-
band homes would be willing to pay for an OTT service from HBO,
while more than 10% would gravitate to CBS All Access, and almost
DirectTangents
a snapshot of launched or emerging direct-to-consumer Ott services from broadcasters and long-established
cable networks.
nBcuniversal
u The comcast-owned programmer will launch a comedy-
centric OTT VOD subscription service later this year, largely
targeted to younger viewers who have cut the cord or have
so far opted not to take a traditional pay TV service.
cBs
u Offers CBS All Access, a multiplatform OTT service, for
$5.99 per month with access to live cBS TV feeds (in select
markets) and on-demand content; does not include live
National Football League games.
u also offers CBSN, a free, ad-supported digital streaming
network. The 24/7 offering provides 15 hours of live,
anchored coverage each weekday.
hBO
u The premium programmer’s direct-to-consumer product
for the U.S., HBO Now, will launch in “early april” on apple
devices, the Time Warner Inc. unit announced march 9 at an
apple press event; it will cost $14.99 per month.
nickelodeon
u The Viacom-owned programmer launched Noggin, a
$5.99-per-month OTT service for preschoolers, on march 5.
Service features hundreds of episodes from TV franchises
such as Blue’s Clues, Franklin and Friends, Oswald and The
Upside Down Show.
Fox
u chase carey, chief operating officer of 21st century Fox,
told investors earlier this month that the company is eyeing
potential direct-to-consumer add-on products. But he
also said he believes that the traditional bundle will have
“tremendous resilience” and serve as the model for most
consumers. Fox, NBcU and The Walt Disney co. are also
among the backers of OTT TV hub Hulu.
starz
u Before OTT became a mainstream phenomenon, the
premium programmer in 2006 launched Vongo, a $10-per-
month broadband-fueled product. It was phased out in 2008
as Starz refocused on TV Everywhere products under the
“Play” umbrella. Starz has not announced plans for a new
direct-to-consumer offering in the U.S., but has been eyeing
OTT launches in international regions.
showtime
u The cBS corp.-owned premium network has deployed
Showtime Anytime, its TVE service, on a variety of
platforms, but has likewise hinted at a potential OTT
service. Last Wednesday (march 11), cBS chief Leslie
moonves said Showtime is ready to offer a standalone
service “in the not too distant future.”
HBONowwill
bowintime
fortheApril
12season
fivepremiere
ofGameof
Thrones.
sOurces: companyreports, MultichannelNews research, B&C

16. 1 6 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
coverstory
10% would give a serious look at a similar type of offering from other
premium video providers.
Parks Associates also found that 15% of pay TV subs are also “likely”
to subscribe to a new OTT service. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that figure
varies by demographic — 21% of millennials are likely to subscribe to
one of the new OTT options, versus 19% among Gen Xers, 7% of baby
boomers and 5% of “mature” consumers.
The OTT world is flush with entertainment-focused services. With
CuriosityStream,Hendricksintendstofillacontentgapbyfocusingon
factual,non-fictionfare.Andhe’sbullishaboutitsprospectsforsuccess.
Early on, Hendricks’s service will attempt to gain traction with
the 10 million broadband homes that don’t subscribe to a TV
service — essentially the same group Sling TV and HBO Now are
courting.
“We think that’s the low-hanging fruit,” Hendricks
said. “But we also see it as a great supplementary service
for people who already have cable or satellite but welcome
additional choices into the home.”
Another group that will be ripe for the picking
are early adopters of 4K TVs, who will undoubtedly
be thirsting for content in the pixel-
packed format. Strategy Analytics re-
ported that just 1% of U.S. homes
had a 4K set in 2014, but that fig-
ure should balloon to nearly 50%
by 2020, it predicted.
Hendricks cited research that
found 25% of the TV market is
interested in the kind of con-
tent CuriosityStream will offer, a group he calls “the life-long cu-
rious.” Such viewers want, for example, to learn about how the
Panama Canal was constructed or find out more about the evolu-
tion of robotics technology.
That gives CuriosityStream a target to shoot for over the next five
years as it focuses its pursuit on broadband-only homes. A “key chal-
lenge” will be marketing a direct-to-consumer product and attracting
customers without the benefit of traditional MVPD-style distribution,
Hendricks also acknowledged.
“If we do a good job, we should penetrate 25% of those households
… that would be 2.5 million of those [broadband-only] homes.”
That’s why Hendricks is a member of Netflix’s cheering section. “If
Netflix is someday in 80 million homes, I hope that we are closing in
on 20 million households,” he said. (Netflix predicts that it will end the
first quarter of 2015 with 61.44 million subs worldwide.)
While CuriosityStream’s content focus would appear to overlap
somewhat with Discovery’s, Hendricks insists he is not about to cross
swords with the company he founded.
“I don’t see it as competitive from the ground up,” he said. “We’re
not competing for advertising dollars, for example. I’m also not
competing for distribution on the linear television systems … I’m
very proud of Discovery, and I remain a bullish shareholder, but
what we’re doing is completely different.” CuriosityStream didn’t
disclose Hendricks’s exact stake in Discovery, but it’s believed to be a
minimal holding between 1% and 2%.
Different for now, anyway — that could change if cable doesn’t im-
prove on its execution of TV Everywhere. Discovery is developing an
authenticated TVE offering for its domestic MVPD partners, but has
fired warning shots that it might consider a direct-to-consumer angle.
“If TV Everywhere doesn’t develop as it should, it will require all of us
to go direct-to-consumer, because the cable guys aren’t getting it done,”
David Zaslav, Discovery’s CEO, said last month during the company’s
earningscall.DiscoveryhasalreadyhadsomesuccesswithOTToverseas.
On the point of TVE, Hendricks agreed. “I think the industry has
fallenbehindinimplementingTVEverywhere,”hesaid.Buthealsosaid
he believes it’s a good concept for existing cable channels to preserve
their commercial stream while keeping advertisers and industry leaders
happy.“Ithoughttheindustrywould’vehadthissolvedaboutayearago.”
He likewise said he believes some programmers should be doing a
lot more with OTT, holding that “superfans” of any network would
be willing to pay a bit more for access to additional content. Looking
back, Hendricks recalled that some viewers were willing to send
Discovery $19.95 for a solitary video cassette.
“That was the equivalent, 20 or 25 years ago, to a basic-cable sub-
scription,” he said. “They were telling us they were willing to pay the
equivalent of a month’s basic-cable bill to get control of one video.”
While OTT is changing the TV landscape and creating strong-
ly held beliefs that online video will destroy the pay TV ecosystem,
Hendricks said he sees a co-existence forming that will instead cre-
ate a larger video business. Legacy players would do well to embrace
these new distribution models, he said.
And history is on his side.
“Broadcastingdidn’tdoawaywithradioandcabledidn’tdoawaywith
broadcasting,” he said. “The broadcast networks that played aggres-
sivelyincableare
theones that are
the most valu-
able today.” )
Over-the-topserviceCuriosityStream
willbeginofferingnon-fictioncontent
inmultipleresolutionsto“thelife-long
curious”thisWednesday(March18).
x More online
TosignupforabetatestofcuriosityStream,click
throughat multichannel.com/March 16

17. multichannel.com | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | 1 7
people
CENTRIPLY
New York-based targeted TV advertising firm
Centriply has added Rich Kaufman as vice
president, business development. He comes
from the Digital Place-Based Advertising
Association, where he was VP, ad sales.
COMCAST
Comcast has elevated D’arcy F. Rudnay to
executive vice president, chief communica-
tions officer from senior VP.
Also, arthur R. Block advanced to execu-
tive vice president, general counsel and sec-
retary from senior VP, continuing to serve as
the company’s chief legal officer.
And lawrence salva was promoted to ex-
ecutive vice president, chief accounting offi-
cer and controller from senior VP.
COMCAST VENTURES
Comcast Ventures, Comcast’s venture-cap-
ital arm, has hired laurence “lo” toney to
expand its Catalyst Fund to the West Coast.
Toney is the former CEO of LearnStreet.
DISCOVERY
marc Graboff has joined Discovery Commu-
nications as president, global business & legal
affairs, production management and studios,
based in Los Angeles. He most recently served
as president of Core Media Group.
ESPIAL
Jeff huppertz was named vice president,
marketing and develoment at Ottawa-
based on-demand TV software and solu-
tions firm Espial. He had been senior VP,
business and corporate development at Sea-
Well Networks until the firm’s 2014 acqui-
sition by Arris.
SYFY/CHILLER
Katherine nelson advanced to senior vice
president, communications, for NBCUni-
versal-owned networks Syfy and Chiller. She
comes from Esquire Network, where she was
senior VP, communications.
TROIKA
Kevin aratari has joined Los Angeles-
based entertainment brand consultancy
Troika as head of business development
and marketing communications. He
comes from mOcean, where he was chief
marketing officer.
20TH CENTURY FOX
Victoria marcroft was upped to vice presi-
dent of Twentieth Century Fox Television
Distribution’s marketing, promotion and
publicity departmetn for Europe, the Mid-
dle East and Africa. She had been execu-
tive director.
nelsOn Syfy/Chiller
KauFman Centriply
BlOcK Comcast
aRataRi Troika
RuDnay Comcast
GRaBOFF Discovery
SUBMISSIONS: Send people and calendar items to michael Demenchuk, Multichannel News, 28 E. 28th Street, 12th Floor,
New York, N.Y. 10016 or via email to MCNPeople@nbmedia.com.
march 19
Multichannel News/New YorkWIcT,
WonderWomen Luncheon, hilton New
York, 1335 ave. of the americas, New
York. contact: rebecca Shottland, (917)
281-4872 or rshottland@nbmedia.com
or visit mcnwonderwomen.com.
aprIL 15-16
2015 Bcap cable academy, Sheraton
harrisburg hershey hotel, 4650 Lindle
rd., harrisburg, pa. contact: Suzette
Welter, swelter@bcapa.com.
aprIL 21
B&C, Women of New York, roosevelt
hotel, 45 E. 45th Street, New York,
2p.m.-5p.m.contact:rebeccaShottland,
(917) 281-4872 or rshottland@nbmedia.
com or visit bcwomenofny.com.
aprIL 28
mississippi cable Telecommunications
association convention, hard rock
hotel & casino, 777 Beach Blvd., Biloxi,
miss. Visit: www.mctaweb.net.
maY5-7
INTX15: The Internet & Television
Expo, mccormick place, chicago.
Visit: intx15.ncta.com.
maY 5
18thannualcablehallofFame,chicago
Navypier,chicago.contact:(720)502-
7500orvisitwww.cablehalloffame.com.
Calendar
FormoreMultichannelNews events,visit
multichannel.com/events.

18. 1 8 | M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S | M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
freeze frame
M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S | M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 |
AttheNewYorkpremierepartyforE!’sTheRoyals(l.tor.):FrancesBerwick, president, lifestyle networks, NBCUniversal CableEntertainment; Elizabeth Hurley, “Queen Helena;” Bonnie Hammer,chairman, NBCUniversal Cable Entertaimnent; and Adam Stotsky,president, Esquire Network and GM, E!
Alex Gansa, executive producer of Show-time’s Homeland, and star Claire Danes takepart in a Paleyfest LA panel on the series atthe DolbyTheater in Los Angeles.
(From l.): Executive producer Jenni Konner; modera-
tor Judd Apatow; Andrew Rannells; creator/execu-
tive producer; Lena Dunham; Allison Williams; Alex
Karpovsky and executive producers Bruce Eric Kaplan
and Ilene S. Landress at the Paleyfest LA session on
HBO’s Girls.
Workaholics cast members
(l. to r.): Adam DeVine, Blake
Anderson, Anders Holm and
Kyle Newacheck arrive at
Paleyfest LA’s “Salute to
Comedy Central.”
©MICHAELBULBENKOFORPALEYCENTERFORMEDIA
(From l.) Nick Kroll of Kroll Show; Jordan Peele and Keegan-
Michael Key of Key & Peele; and Abbi Jacobson of Broad City
took part in Paleyfest LA’s “Salute to Comedy Central” panel in
Los Angeles.
©MICHAELKOVACFORPALEYCENTERFORMEDIA
©MICHAELBULBENKOFORPALEYCENTERFORMEDIA

19. multichannel.com | M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S | 1 9
freeze frame
At Cox’s “Celebrating the Link Between Digital LearningEnvironments and Student Achievement” event in Scottsdale,Ariz.(l.tor.):SusanAnable,VP,publicaffairs,Cox;ChrisJacobs,co-host,Velocity’s Overhaulin’; Barbara Reinert, ScottsdaleUnified School District; and Colin Templeton, accountdirector, domestic distribution, Discovery Communications.
At the Los Angeles screening of Disney Channel’s original
movie Bad Hair Day (l. to r.): Bradley Steven Perry, Jason
Dolley, Leigh-Allyn Baker, Mia Talerico and Eric Allan
Kramer.
(From l.): Mariana
van Zeller and
Michael Voltaggio,
co-hosts ofTravel
Channel’s Break-
ing Borders, with
Shannon O’Neill,
president ofTravel,
at a screening of
the series at United
Talent Agency in Los
Angeles.
At the Culver City, Calif., premiere of Powers, Sony
PicturesTelevision’s first PlayStation Original Series
for the PlayStation Network (l. to r.): Steve Mosko;
president, and Jamie Erlicht, president, U.S. Program-
ming and Production, Sony PicturesTelevision; and
Shawn Layden, president and CEO, Sony Computer
Entertainment America.
At the “27th Annual Comcast SportsNet Sports
Awards,” benefiting the March of Dimes, in down-
town Chicago (l. to r.): Paul Konerko, former Chi-
cagoWhite Sox and Lifetime Achievement Award
winner; Kyle Long, “Chicago Bear of the Year”;
Brody Roybal, U.S. Paralympics gold medalist
and “Inspirational Athlete Award” winner; Mike
Dunleavy, “Chicago Bull of the Year”; and Bryan
Bickell, “Chicago Blackhawk of the Year.”
SUBMISSIONS: Send your most recent press photos, with an ID, contact name and telephone number, to: Mike Demenchuk, Multichannel News,
28 E. 28th Street, 12th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10016. Send electronic images (4” x 6” at 300 dpi) via email to: mcnart@nbmedia.com

20. 2 0 | M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S | M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
rules
BY JOHN EGGERTON
WASHINGTON — The trade groups repre-
senting cable operators and TV stations are
at odds over the Federal Communications
Commission’s proposal to define some linear
online video providers as multichannel video
programming distributors (MVPDs), but
even some of the broadcast lobby’s network
members are more aligned with cable’s
reluctance to have the regulator step in.
The National Association of Broadcast-
ers has said it believes the FCC should apply
both the rights and responsibilities of being
anMVPDtoover-the-topplatforms,whilethe
National Cable & Telecommunications Asso-
ciation has said the agency should leave the
nascent online video market alone to devel-
op without inserting itself into the equation.
The issue is gaining currency as more pro-
grammers launch over-the-top services that
mirror traditional pay TV. The redefinition of
MVPD—whichwould,ataminimum,extend
program-accessrightstoonlinevideodistribu-
tors (OVDs) — would not apply to on-demand
services, only those providers offering around-
the-clock “channels” of linear programming.
The FCC has also said it wouldn’t apply the
new definition to “TV
everywhere”-like online
accesstoconventionalca-
bleservices,thoughithas
asked whether it should.
In FCC filings, the
NAB said it backed the
redefinitionofanMVPD
as a modernization of
the rules that takes into
account Internet video
distribution and boosts
pay TV competition.
In a separate filing,
though, three of NAB’s network members —
identifying themselves as video programmers,
notbroadcasters—toldtheFCCtobackoff,or
at least hold off. CBS Corp., 21st Century Fox
and The Walt Disney Co. (parent of ABC) —
Comcast-ownedNBCUniversaldidnotsignon
— told the FCC “there is no market failure to
address,andthatimpositionofadditionalreg-
ulationmaylimit,ratherthanincrease,theop-
portunityforconsumerstoobtaintheirdesired
video programming in a myriad of new ways.”
AskedifComcastassociateditselfwitheither
argument, a spokesperson said, “We didn’t file
ourselvesanddidn’tsayanythingspecificabout
anyone else filing.” Com-
cast is the NCTA’s largest
member; NBC is a mem-
ber of the NAB.
The NCTA in its filing
said the FCC should let
the marketplace work
without intervention
and,inanyevent,thedef-
inition of MVPD can’t be
stretched to cover OVDs.
The NCTA said the
FCC does not have the
authority to change the
definition of MVPD, and even if it did, the
change would do nothing to boost compe-
tition. “The commission may not, as a mat-
ter of law — and should not, as a matter of
sound public policy — deem OVDs to be
within the scope of the statutory definition
of an MVPD.”
The NAB, by contrast, wants to make sure
the FCC applies more than just program-
ming-access regulations to OVDs. It wants
online providers to be subject must-carry,
syndicated exclusivity and other responsi-
bilities that go along with MVPD status, or
at least with cable MVPD status. )
OTT Proves Another Digital Divide
MSOs, TV STATIONS SQUARE OFF OVER ONLINE VIDEO’S FUTURE
“The commission may
not, as a matter of law
— and should not, as a
matter of sound public
policy — deem OVDs to
be within the scope of
the statutory definition
of an MVPD.”
NCTA, IN AN FCC FILING
BY JOHN EGGERTON
WASHINGTON — Federal Com-
munications Commission chair-
man Tom Wheeler has signaled
the agency is going over Dish Net-
work’s AWS-3 auction bids with a
fine-toothed comb.
Wheeler didnot identify Dish by
name. Neither did Rep. Frank Pal-
lone (D-N.J.), whose letter Wheel-
er responded to with the assurance
the agency was drilling down on
the bidders in its post-auction re-
view, as it looks toward the next
broadcast incentive auction. But
the subtext was clear.
Dish’s participation in the
ASW-3 auction came via two com-
panies in which it holds a majority
interest and which applied for $3
billion in bidding credits as small
business DEs (designated entities).
“Iassureyouthatwetakeserious-
lyconcernsthatpartiesmayseekto
capitalize on our rules in order to
receive benefits intended for small
businesses or to game the auction
process,” Wheeler wrote to Pallone.
“Dish’s investments in two
[designated entities] in the AWS-3
auction ensured that more par-
ties, not fewer, could participate
in the long-term spectrum econ-
omy,” the Englewood, Colo.-based
company told the FCC last month
in a meeting with officials. )
FCC Drills Into Dish Spectrum Bid JOHNSTALEY
FCCchairmanTomWheeler
assuredacongressmanhewill
vetAWS-3biddersforsignsof
gamingthesystem.

22. 2 2 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
finance
By Mike Farrell
While the rest of the cable industry waits
with bated breath for the wave of consolid­
ation expected in the wake of
the approval or disapproval
of the Comcast­Time Warner
Cable merger, one small cable
company is taking an opposite approach.
Instead of increasing scale to offset rising
programming costs, midsized Cable One is
almost giving up on video and phone service.
Instead, the Phoenix­based MSO is focusing
its energies on higher margin high­speed
data and business services.
The jury is still out on which strategy will
be more successful, but Cable One recently
offered a detailed look into its operations
through a prospectus filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission in anticipation of
this summer’s planned spinoff from parent
Graham Holdings. The spin will make Cable
Oneanindependent,publiclytradedcompany.
Cable One made headlines last year when it
decided not to renew 15 Viacom networks, in­
cluding MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon
andSpike,replacingthemwithsuchlower­cost
alternatives as Revolt, Sprout and TheBlaze.
While that decision has led to a sharp de­
cline in residential video custom­
ers — Cable One finished 2014
with about 451,000 basic­vid­
eo subscribers, a 16.9% decline
from 2013 — revenue from resi­
dential data and business services
increased. And Cable One is bank­
ing that those products will take
up most of the slack in the future.
“For us, success in winning and
retaining residential data and
business services customers are
far more important metrics than
the number of triple play custom­
ers we have,” Cable One said in its
preliminary prospectus.
That flies directly in the face of most oper­
ator strategies — Comcast and Time Warner
Cable, for instance, have embarked on efforts
to boost triple­play penetration and ended
2014 with 44% and 40% of vid­
eo customers, respectively, in
triple­play packages.
“I think that making such a
drastic move as de­emphasizing your core,
bread­and­butter video business, and turn­
ing yourself into a dumb pipe, highlights
how much pressure the smaller cable op­
erators in particular are under,” Pivotal Re­
search Group principal and senior media &
communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak
said, adding that smaller operators are under
increasing stress to sell out to larger players.
That strategy could work for a time, at
least until a deep­pocketed overbuilder en­
croaches on the market or regulators de­
cide it is time to set pricing on broadband.
“Intheend,Ithinkyouwanttohaveasmany
hooks — video, voice, data and wireless — into
the consumer as possible,” Wlodarczak said.
For the forseeable future, though, Cable
One thinks it can survive and thrive with
two rather meaty hooks into the consumer
— broadband and business services.
ForCableOne,residentialdataandbusiness
servicesmadeupabout41.5%oftotalrevenuein
2014, compared to 38% the year before. Its per­
centageofInternet­onlycustomersgrewby50%
between2013and2014,andin2014,52%of Ca­
ble One’s new connects were Internet­only.
Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom
Eagan said Cable One’s relatively low data
penetration rates — 33% of homes passed —
could present some upside for the compa­
ny even as it de­emphasizes video. “Given
their size, they don’t have the leverage to real­
lynegotiatewiththeprogrammerstokeepthe
rates down,” Eagan said. “It makes sense they
wouldgotowardtheheavybroadbandstrategy,
especially given the low penetration rate.”
That has had the obvious dramatic impact
on programming costs. Cable One estimated
its costs will plunge 64.4% from $171.4 million
in 2015 to $61 million by 2019.
That could mean that Cable One is either
planningondroppingmorenetworksorlosing
a lot more video customers, Wlodarczak said.
Cable One seems to be pumping those
savings into more data speeds. In April,
the company plans to boost the minimum
speed for its Ultra high­speed data package
to 100 Megabits per second from 70 Mbps
for no additional charge. By the end of 2016,
it plans to complete an all­digital transi­
tion, freeing up three­fourths of
its plant for data speeds up to and
exceeding 1 Gigabit per second.
The company has also been de­
ploying HD TiVo boxes that allow
customers to watch Internet vid­
eo on their TVs, which could also
drive the need for a faster pipe.
Despite the timing, Wlodar­
czak doesn’t see other operators
following Cable One’s lead.
“There is still too much mar­
gin on video and too much of
an opportunity to claw back
subscribers from satellite TV,”
Wlodarczak said. )
Cable One’s Growth Plan: Cut the Cord
Citing DeClining business, MiDsizeD MsO sCales baCk On ViDeO
commitmentissues
Cable One said it expects its programming commitments to fall
significantly over the next five years.
ANALYSIS
$50
million
$100
million
$150
million
$200
million
$130.938
million
$63.458
million
$61.035
million
$58.407
million
$171.433
million
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
sOuRce: cable One prospectus

23. Speakers also include executives from: ABC Sales; Bravo & Oxygen Media; Discovery Communications; Horizon
Media; IFC; NBCUniversal; Revolt TV; Scripps Networks Interactive; and Sony Pictures Entertainment
And yes, men are welcome.
2 P.M. - 5 P.M. • ROOSEVELT HOTEL, NEW YORK, NY
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015
5th Annual
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN AT WWW.BCWOMENOFNY.COM
MARKETING PARTNER
For sponsorship information please contact: Louis Hillelson at 917-281-4730 or lhillelson@nbmedia.com
For speaker and program information please contact: B&C Editor-in-Chief Melissa Grego at mgrego@nbmedia.com
A candid, off-the-record conversation with the women of TV, media and entertainment
who’ve made it. Cocktails included.
With Drop Shadow
Without Drop Shadow
PRESENTED BY
A N N O U N C I N G
Moderator: Q&A with Jane the Virgin
star Gina Rodriguez
Moderator: Take the Lead Panel
MICHELLE MILLER
Correspondent, CBS News
DEBORAH NORVILLE
Anchor, CTD’s Inside Edition

24. 2 4 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
Multichannel News Index (MNI) 1,064.40 -24.98
Price Price Weekly Month Year 52-Week 52-Week
3/11 3/4 %Change ago ago high Low
Price Price Weekly Month Year 52-Week 52-Week
3/11 3/4 %Change ago ago high Low
(Weekly)
-2.29%
SOURCE:FinancialcontentNOTE:TheMultichannelMultimediaIndexmeasuresthecombinedpricesofstockslisted on this page, weighted by market capitalization. S&P tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index.
MSOs
Cablevision 17.72 18.97 -6.59% 19.92 17.59 21.97 15.92
Charter (H) 182.61 185.74 -1.69% 175.29 127.74 184.28 116.78
Comcast (H) 57.75 59.90 -3.59% 57.40 50.06 60.19 47.21
Comcast(special) (H) 58.06 60.43 -3.92% 57.78 51.22 60.70 47.74
libertyBroadband 52.94 52.90 0.10% 49.37 N/a 55.35 44.08
libertyGlobal 52.36 54.86 -4.56% 49.35 44.04 54.81 37.98
Rogers (l) 33.28 35.01 -4.94% 36.20 39.21 42.46 33.02
Shaw (l) 22.55 23.37 -3.51% 23.41 23.45 27.47 22.39
TimeWarnerCable (H) 152.64 157.49 -3.08% 146.21 139.50 159.94 128.78
tOtal 2,311.10 2,398.44 -3.64% 2,298.43 1,949.41 2,406.37 1,834.76
PROGRAMMERS
21stCenturyFox 34.19 34.97 -2.23% 34.81 32.97 39.27 31.01
AMCNetworks 71.47 74.23 -3.72% 67.50 75.29 77.62 52.73
CBS 59.59 62.46 -4.59% 56.75 66.09 68.10 48.83
CrownMediaHoldings 3.65 3.41 7.04% 3.21 3.87 3.98 2.93
Discovery 32.40 33.80 -4.14% 30.59 84.65 86.81 28.75
Disney 102.89 105.57 -2.54% 101.87 81.05 105.98 102.87
evinelive 6.20 6.36 -2.52% 6.66 5.63 7.00 4.20
HSN 65.95 68.85 -4.21% 65.24 60.52 79.80 52.93
libertyMedia 39.07 39.86 -1.97% 36.96 129.50 142.77 33.15
MadisonSquareGarde 75.87 77.54 -2.15% 77.33 57.62 79.66 48.16
QVCGroup 28.16 29.59 -4.80% 28.87 25.15 30.68 22.37
ScrippsNetworksInteractive 72.22 73.63 -1.91% 73.66 80.11 86.48 70.39
Starz 33.15 34.04 -2.61% 31.76 32.08 34.53 27.31
TimeWarner 82.94 83.08 -0.17% 81.01 67.68 88.13 62.44
Viacom 69.12 70.86 -2.46% 67.15 88.22 89.76 63.26
WWe 16.35 17.16 -4.72% 13.37 29.92 31.98 16.11
tOtal 1,651.07 1,690.32 -2.32% 1,629.09 1,513.33 1,694.59 1,354.50
EQUIPMENT VENDORS
Arris 29.78 29.22 1.92% 26.00 28.59 35.83 23.71
Broadcom 43.79 45.20 -3.12% 44.53 30.43 45.99 28.86
Cisco 28.26 29.33 -3.65% 26.93 21.61 29.99 21.27
Concurrent 6.96 6.12 13.73% 5.83 8.72 8.81 5.69
echoStar 51.71 53.43 -3.22% 53.75 49.96 56.00 43.00
entropic 2.92 3.02 -3.31% 2.90 4.31 4.54 2.15
Harmonic 7.48 7.71 -2.98% 7.77 6.59 7.95 5.63
Intel 32.33 34.12 -5.25% 33.55 24.73 37.90 24.40
lMericssonTelephone 12.42 12.82 -3.12% 12.53 12.87 13.61 11.32
Microsoft 41.98 43.06 -2.50% 42.38 38.02 50.05 37.51
Rentrak 56.01 57.32 -2.29% 59.66 63.52 87.40 43.62
Rovi 21.60 21.73 -0.58% 23.56 24.54 26.44 17.54
SeaChange 7.54 7.35 2.59% 7.20 10.07 10.89 5.30
Technicolor 6.35 6.60 -3.79% 6.03 6.22 8.23 5.02
TiVo 10.61 11.56 -8.18% 10.72 12.94 14.29 10.27
tOtal 1,549.84 1,604.71 -3.42% 1,557.15 1,314.42 1,730.56 1,295.00
TElcOS
AT&T 32.62 34.00 -4.06% 34.39 32.23 37.48 32.07
Sprint 5.05 5.21 -3.07% 5.03 8.78 9.76 3.79
Verizon 47.68 49.07 -2.83% 49.81 46.70 53.66 45.09
tOtal 625.48 647.51 -3.40% 656.19 615.00 685.33 602.32
SATEllITE TV
DirecTV 85.63 88.28 -3.00% 87.34 78.95 89.46 72.28
DishNetwork 73.23 75.60 -3.13% 76.16 61.78 80.75 55.45
tOtal 2,363.29 2,437.33 -3.04% 2,423.38 2,125.23 2,467.49 1,961.19
TiVo -8.18%
Cablevision -6.59%
Intel -5.25%
Rogers Communications -4.94%
QVC Group -4.80%
ToP 5 PerceNTage LoSerS:
Concurrent Computer 13.73%
Crown Media Holdings 7.04%
SeaChange International 2.59%
Arris Group 1.92%
liberty Broadband 0.10%
ToP 5 PerceNTage gaINerS:
MARkET INDEx cOMPARISON
3/11 3/4 % Week Month ago Year ago
MNI 1,064.40 1,099.49 -3.19% 1,073.83 957.62
S&P 500 2,040.24 2,098.53 -2.78% 2,068.53 1,867.63
DJIA 17,635.39 18,096.90 -2.55% 17,862.14 16,351.25
NASDAQ 4,849.94 4,967.14 -2.36% 4,801.18 4,307.19
ANAlyST: CBS IS ‘HAlF SAFe’
Sanford Bernstein media analyst Todd Juenger believes half of cBS’s
$3.8 billion in cash flow is safe — retransmission consent and Showtime.
The other half — tied to advertising and syndication — is in danger.
While ad-market woes are well documented, off-net syndication ratings
are declining, which could force cBS-into more subscription video-on-
demand deals to take up the slack, leading to lower conventional TV
ratings and more SVoD deals. “at some point, there won’t be enough
SVoD revenue to plug the gap, even if they wanted it,” Juenger wrote.
HBO NOWIS NO BUNDle-BReAkeR
MorganStanleymediaanalystBenSwinburnesaidhedoesn’tbelievehBo’s
new over-the-top service hBo Now will break the programming bundle,
becausehBoisalreadysoldalacarte.Swinburnenotedthatabout30million
hBosubscriberspay$15permonthontopofan$80monthlypayTVpackage,
andareunlikelypayingsolelyforaccesstothepremiumchannel.“Therefore,
we do not believe we will see a rush to the exits by pay TV customers when
hBo Now becomes available through apple in april,” Swinburne wrote.
TIP ShEET
finance

25. multichannel.com | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | 2 5
platforms
BY JEFF BAUMGARTNER
While most over-the-top video services
have fixated on vast on-demand libraries,
Pluto TV, like its namesake planetoid, has
an idea that might seem way
out there, or perhaps past its
prime — it offers a lineup
of dozens of virtual linear
channels that tie into a
wide range of themes and
interests.
That’s the idea behind the
service backed by U.K. satellite-TV provid-
er Sky, which booted up almost a year ago.
Pluto TV licenses and syndicates content
from an array of third parties and content
owners, including Shout Factory, Newsy,
FunnyOrDie, YouTube, Maker Studios and
Fullscreen. It then stitches them into an in-
teractive program guide that one might find
on a traditional cable box. There are dedicated
channels for artists such as Miley Cyrus and
Katy Perry, athletes like LeBron James, and
topics as specific as snow sports, movie trail-
ers and kickboxing — and even one that’s
flush with hockey fights.
The IP nature of the advertising-
supported service also gives Pluto TV the
ability to whip up channels that focus on
a crisis, a current pop-culture phenom-
enon or another area that ties into the
social consciousness that isn’t
necessarily being addressed
by traditional linear channels.
One recent example: Pluto TV
launched a temporary dedicated
tribute channel about the life
and times of the late actor
Leonard Nimoy.
But why focus on a linear
model when viewing trends are
clearly shifting to on-demand?
Tom Ryan, Pluto TV’s CEO,
conceded that broadband’s pop-
ularity has paved the way for new video
sources that tend to rely on a search-based
on-demand library. That works if you know
what you’re looking for.
Pluto TV tries to weave together cutting-
edge OTT fare with an
almost old-school linear-
style focus.
“A lot of times, people
just want to push a button
and be entertained,” he said.
“We believe that there’s a gap
in the marketplace in the
way in which consumers generally like to
consume video and media generally.”
In that sense, he sees Pluto TV as an
ambient complement to subscription OTT-
VOD services in much the same way Pandora
fits with Spotify with respect to music.
“We don’t believe it’s an either/or world,”
Ryan said. “We’re curating the best of the
Web so you don’t have to hunt and peck
your way through the Web to find good
stuff. We also believe that people like to
consume content ideally in one place or a
small handful of places rather than having
to go from app to app to app as you current-
ly have to do, particularly on a connected
TV device.”
Pluto TV won’t provide viewership num-
bers, but Ryan said usage is growing and the
reach of the service extends beyond mil-
lennials and consumers who are cutting or
shaving the cord.
“We’ve been extremely encouraged that
people are treating this more like TV than
Web video,” he said.
QVC is currently the only traditional
cable channel offered by Pluto TV, but the
OTT video provider expects to add more
down the road, Ryan said.
As for distribution, Pluto TV is on Web
browsers, iOS and Android mobile devices,
the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick,
Chromecast, the Nexus Player and is
the first streaming service to run on the
Android TV platform. Pluto TV,
which has a dedicated Ultra HD
channel, will also be offered on
the Nvidea Shield, a 4K gaming
console that will be powered by
Android TV.
Pluto TV landed a $13 million
“A” funding round last Novem-
ber, led by U.S. Venture Part-
ners, with help from previous
investors, including Sky, Chica-
go Ventures, Great Oaks Venture
Capital and Luminari Capital. )
Pluto TV Plugs an OTT Gap
BrowsaBle, ad-Based offering looks, feels like live Tv
Sky-backed startup Pluto TV
assembles video from online
providers into virtual,
linear TV style “channels.”
TAKEAWAY
PlutoTvpresentschannelsofover-the-topvideoinagridformat,likepayTv
programmingguides.
“A lot of times, people just
want to push a button and be
entertained.”
ToM RYAN, PlUTo TV

26. 2 6 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
mcnBuzz
Stickiest Shows
Ranking PRogRams by social EngagEmEnt
STICKINESS
RANK
RATING
RANK
TELECAST (week ending march 1) NETWORK
STICKINESS
INDEX*
1 1 The Walking Dead AMC 154
2 202 Good Witch
Hallmark
Channel
143
3 34 The Real Housewives of Atlanta Bravo 140
4 133 Love & Hip Hop VH1 137
5 298 Pretty Little Liars ABC Family 134
6 118 Rizzoli & Isles TNT 133
7 98 Being Mary Jane BET 132
8 16 Gold Rush
Discovery
Channel
129
9 73 Better Call Saul AMC 129
10 19 WWE Monday Night Raw USA Network 127
11 514 Bring It! Lifetime 126
12 196 The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Bravo 125
13 65 Street Outlaws
Discovery
Channel
125
14 108 WWE SmackDown Syfy 123
15 312 Vanderpump Rules Bravo 122
16 621 The Fosters ABC Family 121
17 637 Mob Wives VH1 121
18 261 Black Ink Crew VH1 121
19 884 Ghost Adventures
Travel
Channel
121
20 385 Justified FX 120
The rentrak Stickiness Index reveals which basic-cable shows have the highest social-engagement levels, based on several factors. a
higher Stickiness Index rating indicates more of the audience is tuned in for the duration of the telecast. Please note that this data is
not based on the finalized ratings, so some slight differences may emerge when the ratings are final.
*TVEngagement ratings powered by rentrak’sTVEssentials. (Sorted by social media activity.)

27. TH U RSDAY, MAY 22, 2014 • CONVE N E, N EW YOR K, NY
TECHNOLOGYPROGRAMMINGADVERTISING DISTRIBUTION MARKETING
TH U RSDAY, MAY 22, 2014 • CONVE N E, N EW YOR K, NY
TECHNOLOGYPROGRAMMINGADVERTISING DISTRIBUTION MARKETING
TECHNOLOGYPROGRAMMINGADVERTISING DISTRIBUTION MARKETING
TECHNOLOGYPROGRAMMINGADVERTISING DISTRIBUTION MARKETING8:15am-6:00pm • Roosevelt Hotel • 45 E 45th Street, NY NY 10017
7TH
ANNUAL
June 19, 2015
Register today—OnDemandSummit.com
For registration information, contact Rebecca Schottland rschottland@nbmedia.com
To sponsor, contact Louis Hillelson at lhillelson@nbmedia.com
SAVE
DATE
THE
This event focuses on today’s dynamic business of On Demand TV. The traditional businesses of on demand and pay-per-
view have long enjoyed steady, continued growth. Now, with the implementation of recent advances in WiFi mobility and
personal devices, will the industry experience soaring increases in viewer use and revenues?
This signature, annual conference attracts leading executives and decision-makers. Attendees from cable TV, telephony,
satellite and OTT providers will be joined by programmers, producers, promoters, technology suppliers, audience
researchers, advertisers and agencies.
MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH SPONSORED BY
THIS EVENT IS PRODUCED FOR BROADCASTING
& CABLE AND MULTICHANNEL NEWS BY THE
SCHRAMM MARKETING GROUP
For speaking opportunities, contact Joe Schramm at jschramm@schrammnyc.com

28. 2 8 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | m a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
community
VOICES
Picture this r.thomas umstead
maYweather-PacQuIao PrIce uNcertaINItY march 12
hBoandshowtimelive-streamedthemarch11mannyPacquiao-Floyd
mayweatherpressconferencetoboxingfansforfree,butthenetworks
haveyettodecidehowmuchtochargeviewerstowatchthefightersslugit
outintheringonmay2.
thesuggestedretailpriceforthePPVmegaboutwasnotrevealedduring
march11’sglitzyLosangelespressconferencetopromotethemuchantici-
patedfight.PPVdistributorssaytheyareanxiouslyawaitingwordfrom
thefight’sco-distributors,hBoandshowtime,abouthowmuchtocharge
foraPPVeventpittingagainsteachotherarguablythetoptwopound-for-
poundfightersinaboutthat’sbeeninthemakingsince2009.
whilenoonedoubtsthefightwillcarrythehighestpriceeverforaPPVevent—certainly
abovethe$75to$85markchargedforseveralrecentmayweatherPPVfights—thequestion
is,howhighishigh?speculationthattheeventcouldcostviewersasmuchas$100hassome
distributorsabitnervousthatthepricetagcoulddampenpotentialPPVbuys.
For more of this blog, visit multichannel.com/March16.
MCN’S MOSt REad
toP artIcLes oN muLtIchaNNeL.com, march 6-12
1.weather channel comes off Verizon Fios tV
2.‘hBo Now’ to Launch exclusively on apple devices
3. angelakis:comcastNotworriedaboutott
4.Fox, at&t at Loggerheads over Fs1 action
5.comcasttoutswiFispeedreport
to read these stories, visit multichannel.com/March16.
twitterati
“congrats @iamjazztrans on the new #tlc show #girlslikeus” @Lavernecox, Laverne
Cox, transgender actress and star of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, on March 12,
congratulating transgender teen Jazz Jennings on her new reality series TLC announced
earlier that day
“#Fcc has the audacity to use the term ‘light-touch’ a dozen times in its 400-pg, 1,777-foot-
note #NetNeutrality regulatory order! oh my.” @adamtheirer,Adam Thierer, senior research
fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, on March 12, the day the Federal
Communications Commission released its new network-neutrality order
“understatementoftheday:“wewouldnotbesurprisedifsomeonesuesandtakesustocourt”
#Fcc#netneutrality”@Katyonthehill,KatyBachman,veteranmediareporteronMarch12in
referencetotheFCC’snewnetwork-neutralityorder
“Plowing through #NetNeutrality doc — fav part so far — reclassifying as #titleII but for-
bearing from Vast majority” @richBtIG, BTIG media analyst Rich Greenfield on March 12
Numbers
31
the average hours per week hispanic
americans spend on the Internet, 83%
more time than non-hispanic americans,
who spend 21 hours a week online.
SOURCE:specificmediaandsmGmulticulturaljointstudy,
“hispanicamericansForeshadowtheFutureofmedia”
talkbaCk
www.multichannel.com
content Providers see
Value in Going Ott
(re: “‘hBo Now’ to Launch exclusively on apple devic-
es,” march 11: “I think you overestimate how much the
content providers value distributors. It’s better to get
100% of $14.99 than $2 of $20, even after paying the
cost of video streaming.there’s a reason why every
content producer sees value in swapping to ott.”
“Greg”
so Over FiOs for Dropping
the weather channel
(re: the weather channel comes off Fios tV,”
march 10): “this channel (49) is one reason I have
Verizon Fios. I want to see the radar and condi-
tions as soon as I turn on the tV. … with channel
119, you have to wait until they get to your area of
the country. It’s ridiculous. my neighbors told me
this morning that they have already started to shop
around. time to join them.”
Jim Binder
so Over weather
long Before FiOs was
(re: “the weather channel comes off Fios tV,”
march 10): “haven’t tuned into twc since they
started naming storms. It just got too ridiculous.
I won’t miss it, although I have to admit that my
elderly mother is not happy about it. I guess I’ll have
to teach her how to use a tablet.”
“claudster”

29. multichannel.com | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | 2 9
Vol. 36 No. 10 March 16, 2015 © 2015 by NewBay Media, LLc. all rights reserved. Multichannel News® is a registered trademark of NewBay Media, LLc. Multichannel News (USPS 590-190) (ISSN 0276-8593) is published weekly, except one week in
February, one week in May, one week in July, one week in august, one week in November and one week in December, 2015, by NewBay Media, LLc, 28 E. 28th Street, New York, NY 10016. Subscription prices: U.S. 47 issues, $199. canada/Mexico 47 issues
$259.99. Foreign 47 issues, $299.99. Prepayment in U.S. funds only. Please send subscription orders to Multichannel News, P.O. Box 5872, harlan, Ia 51593-1167 or call (888)343-5563. Outside the U.S., call (515) 247-2984. Please allow three to four weeks
for your subscription to begin or for changes to become effective. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMaSTEr: Please send address changes to Multichannel News, P.O. Box 5872, harlan, Ia 51593-1167. Publica-
tions Mail agreement No. 41975525. Please return undeliverable canadian addresses to: rcS International, Box 697 STN a, Windsor Ontario N9a 6N4. Printed in U.S.a.
Last September, National
Journal named Netflix
the new face of network
neutrality. According to
one Federal Commu-
nications Commission
official, Netflix advocates
were “screaming their
heads off” last year, de-
manding that the agency
reclassify broadband In-
ternet access as a public
utility under Title II of the
Communications Act.
Now that the agency
has actually imposed Title II on
broadband, however, Netflix isn’t hap-
py with the FCC. It turns out Netflix
was merely using the FCC’s regulato-
ry process to pressure ISPs into giving
itspecial interconnection deals.
We should all be outraged to dis-
cover that a major shift in our nation’s
communications policy was driven
by duplicitous corporate maneuver-
ing. But it would be a mistake to blame
Netflix for the folly of our policymak-
ers. Corporate posturing and specious
arguments designed to gain a corpo-
rate advantage are nothing new in
Washington, and independent, expert
agencies are ordinarily expected to see
through it. The fault lies with a White
House that was too eager to embrace
Netflix’s sound bites for political rea-
sons, and an FCC that was too easily
bent to the White House’s will.
Netflix revealed its Title II advocacy
was a ruse on March 4, when Netflix
chief financial officer David Wells said
the company was disappointed by the
ultimate outcome at the FCC. “We
were hoping there might be a non-
regulated solution,” he said at the 2015
Morgan Stanley Technology, Media &
Telecom Conference in San Francisco.
Wells didn’t say what “non-regu-
lated solution” Netflix had hoped to
achieve, but anyone who
followed last year’s she-
nanigans between Netflix
and major ISPs knows
that its interest was
aimed at obtaining free
interconnection deals.
Wells’s statement makes
clear that Netflix hoped
its public push for Title II
would force ISPs to capit-
ulate to its demands.
Netflix had hinted at
this strategy in its January
2014 statement on the
federal court decision overturning the
FCC’s 2010 net-neutrality rules.
“To the degree that ISPs adhere
to a meaningful voluntary code of
conduct, less regulation is warrant-
ed. To the degree that some aggres-
sive ISPs start impeding specific data
flows, more regulation would clearly
be needed.”
Like most everyone else, it appears
Netflix assumed the FCC was unlikely
to reclassify broadband as a Title
II service, but hoped that its vocal
support for Title II would create
enough buzz to pressure ISPs into
making voluntary concessions on in-
terconnection.
But, like most everyone else, it
appearsNetflixdidn’tforeseetheWhite
House’s political plan to overrule FCC
chairman Tom Wheeler on Title II.
Once the president put his marker
down,anyhopeNetflixhadofreaching
a voluntary compromise on its pet net-
neutralityissuewastakenoffthetable.
Netflix didn’t know that the White
House had a pair of aces up its sleeve
and was willing to use them.
Netflixbluffed,andeveryonelost.)
Fred Campbell is executive
director of the Center for Boundless
Innovation in Technology.
Netflix Bluffed, Everyone Lost
FRED CAMPBELL
Center for Boundless
InnovatIon In
teChnology
accESS
viewpoint
1 Color - 0 Cyan / 100 Magenta / 99 Yellow / 4 Black
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30. 3 0 | m u l t i c h a n n e l n e w s | M a r c h 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 | multichannel.com
throughthewire
NEW YORK — Comedian Ben Gleib, host of
GSN’s returning (April 1) quiz show Idiotest,
welcomedreportersandadvertiserstothenet-
work’s annual upfront breakfast. “It was great
gettingtoknowseveralofyouduringourbrief,
15-second conversations,” he deadpanned at
the March 10 gathering at the Sony Club.
With apologies to GSN CEO David Gold-
hill,whoemceedthepreviouscoupleofyears,
this Gleib guy seems like a keeper.
FirstGleibintroducedGoldhill,callinghim
“awonderfulguyandmylongtimeboyfriend.”
“Iguessweknowwhatthebignewsisgoing
to be tomorrow,” Goldhill replied, before say-
ing he had “quite enjoyed” being emcee. (Hey,
that’s show biz.)
After Goldhill’s spiel, Gleib said the CEO
hadmeanttoannounceGSNorderedanother
five seasons of Idiotest.
“So, it’s true, five seasons of one episode
each, beyond this year,” Goldhill said, telling
Gleib, “I need that suit back.”
GleibintroducedGSN’sadsaleschiefasthe
“very, very bald” JohnZaccario.
“That’s the best you can do, bald? This
guy over here could do better and you’re
a professional,” Zaccario said, referring to
Goldhill.
When programming chief Amy Introca-
so-Davis took her turn to speak about new
shows and returning series, she said GSN
was attracting younger-than-usual audienc-
es thanks to Idiotest and to Skin Wars, the
bodypainting competition skein that in 2014
became the channel’s top performing original
ever in key demos such as women ages 25-54.
GSN even had a model at the breakfast
event, Katherine Terreros, bodypainted (by
the artist known as Vargas) as a tiger.
While Introcaso-Davis spoke, Gleib appar-
ently gave Goldhill back his suit. The host re-
turned to the podium wearing only black
underpants, jacquard socks and black shoes,
hischestbearingthepaintedslogan“GSN2015
Upfront” under a Manhattan skyline.
“We all have to agree to the bodypainting in
our contracts,” he explained.
“This is the end of our presentation, and
judging by my nipples, it is 40 degrees out
there,” he declared, inviting guests to linger
a while.
— Kent Gibbons
Glib Gleib Leads GSN Gathering,
Baring (Almost) All At Upfront
(Cord-)Cutting
Satire as ‘Onion’
Weighs In
You know you have earned your
zeitgeistcredwhenTheOniontakes
aim from its satirical perch.
Such was the case last week as
cable’s battle against cord cutters
made it onto the Onion website
(how appropriate) in the form of
some tongue-in-cheek respons-
es to the cord-cutting phenome-
non of giving up traditional cable
service in favor of watching on-
line (mostly also possible because
of cable companies wearing their
“invest hundreds of billions in ISP
hat,” but we digress).
Some of The Wire’s favorites.
• “Cable boxes to emit loud,
pained moan whenever users at-
tempt to unplug.”
• “For added convenience, four-
hour installation windows will be
reduced to 16 separate 15-minute
windows.”
• “Reminding customers there’s
probably a James Bond marathon
on Spike right now.”
• “Highlighting the exciting add-
edlevelofsuspensethatcomeswith
viewingshowswhoseplotsarecon-
stantly interrupted by two- to four-
minute commercial breaks.”
• “Massive rebranding effort to
portray cable industry as plucky,
$300 billion underdog.”
— John Eggerton
Wonder Women
Coming March 19
Thursday’sWonderWomenlun-
cheon has been a hot ticket for
weeks and only a limited num-
ber of seats are still available to
honor 13 Wonder Women and a
dozen Women to Watch, aided
by three star guest hosts: Alisyn Camerota (l.), the co-host of CNN’s
New Day; Andrea Canning (c.), anchor for NBC’s Dateline; and Pam
Oliver,reporterforFoxNFLSunday,theNFLonFoxandFoxSports1.
Theevent,returningtotheHiltonNewYorkandco-sponsoredby
theNewYorkchapterofWomeninCableTelecommunications,cel-
ebrates the accomplishments of the 17th class of Wonder Women. If
past luncheons are any guide, the speeches will be warm, funny and
educational,andtheopportunitytonetworkwithhundredsofcable-
industry peers will be invaluable. For more about the event and the
honorees, please visit mcnwonderwomen.com.
IdiotesthostBenGleibandbodypaintedmodel
KatherineTerreroslivenedupMarch10’sGSN
upfrontattheSonyClubinNewYork
LOUrOccO