Consumer Confidential: Verizon mulling pricier Net access; Hulu Plus makes cheaper debut

Here's your throw-me-a-bone Thursday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

--It was bad enough that wireless companies started hitting up customers for extra cash if they wanted Net access. Now we're looking at even higher fees if you want fast Net access. Verizon is reportedly looking at new rates that will depend on the speed with which data is delivered. Faster downloads -- more dinero. Verizon and AT&T are also offering plans that will cap the amount of Net access you can have, depending on how much you pay. Unlimited data plans? That's so 2009.

--Elsewhere in the telecom world, the online video site Hulu has unveiled its Hulu Plus premium service, which will give subscribers unlimited viewing of current season TV shows for a monthly fee. The company is offering a free one-week trial, with a subscription cost of $7.95 a month after that. That's lower than the $9.99 originally floated. On the downside, Hulu Plus still comes with commercials even thought you're paying extra, and you can't fast-forward through them. Hulu is co-owned by big dogs such as NBC Universal, News Corp. and Disney.

-- David Lazarus

Photo: A Verizon Wireless store in Washington, D.C. Credit: Karen Bleier / AFP/ Getty Images

 

 

Verizon is reportedly toying with the idea of charging a premium for the faster data speeds delivered on its new 4G network, which is expected to be available throughout much of the U.S. by the end of the year, according to a Wall Street Journal article. If the telecom giant goes ahead with data speed pricing, it wouldn't be the first time an Internet service provider has made such a move. Remember dial-up rates versus broadband rates?

But where things have become more complex of late is in the realm of tiered wireless data pricing, which AT&T (T) kicked off earlier this year, and which is now being offered as a holiday promotion by Verizon. Under tiered data pricing plans, users have caps on the amount of data they can use in a given month, in contrast to the old industry standard of offering a plan with a flat rate for unlimited use. Data hogs love unlimited data plans, especially with the increasing popularity of online video and the ubiquitous availability of Internet access.


See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/9xEph1

Verizon is reportedly toying with the idea of charging a premium for the faster data speeds delivered on its new 4G network, which is expected to be available throughout much of the U.S. by the end of the year, according to a Wall Street Journal article. If the telecom giant goes ahead with data speed pricing, it wouldn't be the first time an Internet service provider has made such a move. Remember dial-up rates versus broadband rates?

But where things have become more complex of late is in the realm of tiered wireless data pricing, which AT&T (T) kicked off earlier this year, and which is now being offered as a holiday promotion by Verizon. Under tiered data pricing plans, users have caps on the amount of data they can use in a given month, in contrast to the old industry standard of offering a plan with a flat rate for unlimited use. Data hogs love unlimited data plans, especially with the increasing popularity of online video and the ubiquitous availability of Internet access.


See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/9xEph1

Consumer Confidential: Retail sales rise, video screens shrink, Black Friday expands

Here's your my-Sharona Monday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

--The holiday season is upon us, and already the tea leaves are positive. Retail sales rose for a fourth straight month in October, signaling that consumers are set to do some serious shopping as the economy slowly lurches back to health. Total retail sales increased 1.2% from the previous month to $373.1 billion, compared with September's upwardly revised 0.7% advance, the Commerce Department said. It was the largest gain since March, when sales spiked more than 2%. I'm thinking that the flat-screen TV I've been eyeing for several years now is looking a little more attainable.

--Everyone else, though, is looking at smaller and smaller screens. Comcast is the latest video heavyweight to throw in with a mobile future. The cable giant has unveiled a free iPad app that allows subscribers to watch videos and even program their digital video recorders on the go. Cable companies are terrified that an increasing number of people will cut the cord and rely solely on Internet-based resources for their viewing pleasure. So they're scrambling to put online options out there before subscribers cut and run. Me, I just can't wait to watch "Lawrence of Arabia" on my BlackBerry. I'm thinking some of those desert scenes will resemble a flea circus.

--Back to shopping: Wal-Mart is the latest big retailer to say it will expand its hours for next week's Black Friday consume-a-palooza (link requires subscription). The company says it will open most stores at midnight on Nov. 26, so discount-craving shoppers can storm the aisles and battle one another for a relative handful of price cuts. Wal-Mart has promotions on toys, apparel and home goods. Deals for certain electronics -- including TVs and computers -- won't begin until 5 a.m. I guess I won't be making a run on that flat-panel set right away.

-- David Lazarus

 

 

  

Internet-connected electronics fueling more rentals, less buying, in home entertainment

Consumer spending on home entertainment dropped about 4% though the first nine months of 2010  compared with the same period last year, according to data from the BTIG Research firm.

The reason? More people are using consumer electronics items such as Internet-connected televisions and Blu-Ray players to rent entertainment media instead of buying it.

Such electronics allow consumers to access streaming and rental services such as Netflix, which has bitten into sales of boxed media, the research firm said.

The third quarter of the year saw particularly high declines, the firm said. Sales of disc-based media such as high-definition Blu-Ray disc movies and standard-definition DVDs, as well as digital download purchases, dropped 11% in the third quarter of the year, compared with a 5% drop during the first six  months of 2010, BTIG said.

In addition to Netflix, rental kiosks such as Redbox and video on demand from cable and satellite providers are seeing rapid growth, BTIG said. Spending on rentals from kiosks rose 55% over the first nine months of 2010, the firm said.

That too means more rentals and fewer purchases, but also fewer rentals from brick-and-mortar rental stores such as Blockbuster. Brick-and-mortar rental sales were down about 31.4% over the first nine months of 2010, year over year, BTIG said.

Chart: Consumer spending on home entertainment. Credit: BTIG Research.

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Consumer Confidential: Smarter plastic, cheaper TVs

Hulu Plus ... what?

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

High stakes for Conan

Entertainment reporter Joe Flint says TBS is charging a lot of money for ads on Conan O'Brien's new show, which debuts tonight. Will O'Brien be able to deliver the viewers? Read Flint's Company Town blog post here.

 

Consumer Confidential: Time Warner profits while losing customers; backing for a 'Slurpee Summit'

Here's your thought-for-the-day Thursday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

-- Is the writing on the wall for cable companies? Time Warner Cable, the dominant provider in Southern California, lost more video subscribers -- 155,000 -- in the most recent quarter than it ever had before. The danger for cable, as with newspapers, is that more people are leaping to the Internet for their media consumption, leaving traditional media providers in the dust. Nevertheless, Time Warner said its quarterly profit grew to $360 million from $268 million a year earlier. Hmmm. Fewer subscribers ... higher profit ... Am I the only one wondering if ever-rising cable rates are fair?

-- President Obama joked after the election that maybe he should hold a "Slurpee Summit" with Republicans to discuss the future. 7-Eleven, which owns the Slurpee brand, likes the sound of that. The company is now pushing to make the Slurpee Summit a reality. "This is a rare opportunity for a brand," says Margaret Chabris, a spokeswoman for the chain. "We don't want to be opportunistic, but nothing has ever been this big for Slurpee." She says 7-Eleven would be happy to provide Slurpees for the event, even in red and blue colors so all participants feel welcome. Hey, maybe Slurpees can prevail where common sense has failed.

-- David Lazarus

 

Video: Joe Flint on the Fox-Dish fight

Fox is threatening to pull the signals of its local TV stations — including KTTV-TV Channel 11 and KCOP-TV Channel 13 in L.A. — from Dish systems if the two sides fail to agree on payments for those signals by Nov. 1. The dispute parallels one that is taking place in New York, entertainment reporter Joe Flint says. Here's a link to today's story by Meg James.

 

Michael Hiltzik: One box to rule them all

The battle for the set-top box is an ancient one, meaning in consumer technology terms it dates back two decades or so. First, decoder boxes became necessary to unscramble your cable signal, then to provide you with premium services such as HBO. Cable operators and box manufacturers dreamed of using set-top boxes to push services at viewers such as home shopping and video on demand.

As my Wednesday column observes, the hard-disc video viewing enabled by ReplayTV and TiVo when they arrived on the scene 10 years ago was the first true advance in the viewing experience since, well, color TV. Back then the boxes were known as PVRs or "personal video recorders," but as "digital video recorders" they are now part of the box in more than a third of all U.S. homes. They've evolved significantly since I reviewed the originals in this piece.

Now the DVR seems poised to morph into something new -- a box to give you access to an even larger selection of video via the Internet. Netflix and Roku say that usage of their service has surged as the number of video and movie titles available for "instant viewing" -- Netflix's term -- has grown, and the company is making new deals all the time. Whose box will rule?

The column starts below.

As the last century waned, scarcely a day passed without someone showing up in our newsroom offering a demonstration of a new dot-com service or consumer device. ECommerce sites for T-shirts and sandals, search sites paying jackpots to lucky users, you name it.

One day a team from a company called ReplayTV wheeled in a television set wired to a box with a hard drive inside. They hooked it up to our cable jack to show how we could use it to pause, rewind and fast-forward live TV.

I still remember that day because it was the only time I ever left one of those pitch meetings thinking, “That will change my life, and I must have it.” Today such devices, known as digital video recorders, are commonplace — a survey last year estimated that 36% of all U.S. homes have at least one, many provided by their cable or satellite company.

Read the whole column.

-- Michael Hiltzik

Video: Why no NFL Channel on Time Warner Cable?

Entertainment reporter Joe Flint says the NFL's top spokesman took to Twitter to take a shot at Time Warner Cable's recent decision to add eight new channels featuring adult entertainment--but not the NFL Channel. Read his blog post here.

Consumer Confidential: More poor, more foreclosures, more heat on cable companies

Here's your think-it-through Thursday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

--Not feeling so flush? You're not alone. The government says the nation's poverty rate jumped to 14.3% in 2009 -- the highest level since 1994 -- and the 43.6 million Americans in need is the highest number in 51 years of record-keeping. Ouch. The poverty level in 2009 was defined as less than $21,954 a year for a family of four. The poverty rate increased for all racial groups except Asians. But there's a bright spot (sort of): The poverty level is less than what some experts were predicting. I'm sure that makes you feel better.

--Underlining the whole times-are-tough thing, a record number of homes were taken over by banks in August, according to market researcher RealtyTrac. Apparently lenders worked through a backlog of foreclosures, pushing the number of repossessions higher. RealtyTrac predicts a record 1.2 million repossessions this year, up from just under 1 million last year. In 2005, before the housing market went kerblooey, banks took over just about 100,000 houses. Did I mention that there are a lot more poor people these days?

--Ah, but what's this -- a glimmer of sunshine! New York has negotiated a new contract with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision requiring the two cable companies to pay customers if their technicians don't show up on time for appointments. Basically, if the tech doesn't arrive on time, the customer gets a credit for a full month's bill. Sweet! After 2012, though, the penalty decreases to $25. Let's get something like that in Southern California. And let's also end the practice of cable companies giving themselves a four-hour window (or more) for appointments. If customers can be there on time, so can the cable guy.

-- David Lazarus

Consumer Confidential: Cable on your iPad, Time Warner profit, Red Double Stacks

Here's your thoughtfully Thursday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

-- Coming soon to an iPad near you: cable TV. Cablevision Systems Corp. says it's testing technology to deliver video services to all Internet-enabled devices, including PCs, smartphones and tablets such as the iPad. If Cablevision, which has about 3 million customers, is successful, expect all other cable companies to quickly follow suit with video feeds that break free of the TV. This obviously makes sense from a business point of view -- reaching customers wherever they are. But it's an open question whether people would want to subscribe to an online cable plan when they can get their fix via free or cut-rate services such as YouTube and Hulu.

-- Speaking of cable, Time Warner Cable, the dominant provider in Southern California, posted higher-than-expected quarterly profit of $342 million as more people signed up for Internet and phone service. The company added 85,000 residential Internet subscribers over the last three months as it continued an aggressive marketing push to win business from phone companies. However, Time Warner lost 111,000 video subscribers during the same period, highlighting the challenges cable companies face in a wired world.

-- Let them eat Double Stacks. A Russian business publication is reporting that Wendy's is gearing up to enter the Russian market early next year. Vedomosti, citing sources in the restaurant industry, says Wendy's is in talks with a local company to bring its fast-food fare to the former Soviet Union. If so, then I'm prepared to say the Cold War is over. We won.

-- David Lazarus

Video: Is there life beyond HBO for 'True Blood'?

HBO is starting to shop repeats of "True Blood" to commercial cable networks, Joe Flint writes. The show, which just started its third season, has turned into HBO's biggest hit since the days of "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos." But will it find success on other networks? Flint talks about its prospects in the video.