Digital Lifescapes

The video entertainment market continues to evolve in America. Low-cost, new and improved over-the-top (OTT) video streaming services have made it virtually impossible for the traditional pay-TV providers to justify their high-cost offerings. Meanwhile, the legacy pay-TV service providers can't halt the continued loss of subscribers, as consumers seek and find alternative sources of news, weather and video entertainment online. U.S. multi-channel defections ballooned in the third quarter, amplified by tighter promotions at a time when consumers need little additional motivation to seek OTT alternatives, according to the latest market study by Kagan, a TMT research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence . Pay-TV Market Development Kagan estimates traditional multi-channel subscribers fell by nearly 1.9 million in the three months ended September 30 -- that's a 25 percent spike from the previous largest drop in the second quarter of 2019. The combined tradition...

Who is Deborah Tate? That's a question that many people in the telecom sector will be asking in the coming weeks. Nominated by the Bush administration to replace an exiting FCC commissioner, we should all be concerned. Why? From 1979 to 1985, she was on the senior staff and as assistant legal counsel to then Governor Lamar Alexander. Fast forward to January 2004, now Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist became famous for their unrelenting attempts to apply a new tax to internet access services. A month later, when that effort failed to gain enough support, Senator Alexander said he instead wanted to increase the federal excise tax on telecom services. "Congress should raise the federal excise tax from 3 percent to 4 percent," said Alexander at that time. Senator John McCain of Arizona had previously made the case to end the Federal Excise tax, but was unable to gain enough support for the bill. Note, many democrats and republicans se...