Leading media company Discovery Communications Inc. DISCA recently launched a streaming app called “Discovery Go” for cable and satellite TV subscribers. With this, the company has forayed into the TVEverywhere market by way of which authenticated pay-TV subscribers can login to their account from mobile devices and can watch TV programs live or on-demand.
The key innovation characteristic to Discovery Go is that by downloading a single app, users can watch as many as nine TV channels of Discovery Communications, namely, Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel, Discovery Life, Destination America, American Heroes Channel and Velocity. However, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), Discovery Family, Discovery en Español and Discovery Familia are not yet covered under this service.
As of now, Discovery Go is available on iOS and Android-based mobile devices to subscribers of Cablevision Systems, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications. Subscribers of AT&T’s DIRECTV, Verizon’s FiOS and DISH Network’s pay-TV services will have to wait till Discovery renegotiates retransmission agreements with these companies. On the other hand, Comcast’s subscribers, though lacking direct access to Discovery Go, can use Comcast’s Xfinity apps to view Discovery’s channels.
Over the last 2–3 years, the internal dynamics of the pay-TV market have been gradually shifting from cable, satellite and telecom TV to low-cost online video streaming service providers. The strong presence of online video streaming providers is posing significant threat to the existing pay-TV business model. Video offerings, which represented the core business function of cable TV operators, seem to be slipping out of their hands. Consequently, the media companies have suffered owing to increased cord-cutting.
In order to remain competitive, traditional media companies are gradually coming up with online video offerings. The Walt Disney co. DIS introduced Watch ESPN, Time Warner Inc. TWX recently rolled out a streaming service called “HBO Go” and Comcast Corp. CMCSA launched Xfinity TV apps. Discovery Go is the latest entrant in this league.
Discovery Communications currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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