Weekly Pay-TV Notes: Dish’s Sling TV Flounders During Fear the Walking Dead Premiere, Netflix Collaborates With SoftBank Ahead Of Japanese Launch

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The pay-TV industry saw significant activity this week, with Dish Network’s Sling TV suffering an outage during Sunday night’s premiere of AMC’s highly-anticipated Fear the Walking Dead. This is the fourth time in the last few months when Sling TV has failed to provide satisfactory service during the telecast of a high profile event. On a separate note, Streaming giant Netflix has decided to partner with Japan’s SoftBank Group ahead of its launch in the Asian country. Netflix has set a September 2 launch date for Japan and teaming-up with local businesses will help the company in reaching out more efficiently to the masses. On that note, we discuss below these developments related to the pay-TV companies over the past few days.

Dish’s Sling TV Drops The Ball During AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead Premier

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Dish Network‘s (NASDAQ:DISH) online streaming service Sling TV suffered an outage during Sunday night’s premiere of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. [1] Sling TV acknowledged the below-par service and promptly apologized on Twitter. This is the fourth time in the last few months when Sling TV has failed to provide satisfactory service during the telecast of a high profile event. The streaming service was earlier not able to handle the influx of users who logged on to watch the semi-finals of the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament. [2] Sling also faced problems during the telecast of Game of Thrones’ season premiere on HBO and Pretty Little Liars’ season finale on ABC Family. [3] [4] One of Sling’s biggest selling points is that the streaming service provides a cheaper alternative to viewing content as compared to traditional pay-TV. However, Dish must realize that in-demand programming and important sporting events will inevitably result in a jump in Sling’s viewership and should accordingly maintain adequate infrastructure. Frequent missteps in this regard could lead to a large portion of the customers and potential customers losing their faith in the streaming service.

Time Warner Cable’s stock gained around 1.6% over the week through Thursday. We currently have a price estimate of $198 for Time Warner Cable. For the year 2015, we estimate revenues of $23.7 billion, in line with the consensus estimate, and EPS of $6.86, compared to a consensus estimate of $6.61.

Netflix Teams Up With SoftBank Ahead Of Japanese Launch

Streaming giant Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) has decided to partner with Japan’s SoftBank Group ahead of its launch in the Asian country. [5] As per the agreement, SoftBank customers will be able to sign up for Netflix’s streaming service through SoftBank’s website and call centers, SoftBank’s retail shops and major electronics retailers. The collaboration will also allow SoftBank customers to pay the streaming service’s subscription dues through SoftBank’s payment system without filling out any additional payment information. Netflix has set a September 2 launch date for Japan and teaming-up with local businesses will help the company in reaching out more efficiently to the masses. [6] Japan is the first Asian country Netflix is launching into and has a population of about 127 million and 36 million broadband households, behind only China and US. [7] This launch is part of the company’s aggressive international expansion strategy that intends to launch streaming services in 200 countries by the end of 2016. (Related – A Closer Look At Netflix’s Foray Into Japan) Netflix is currently available in over 50 countries and has over 65 million subscribers globally.

Netflix’s stock gained around 13% over the week through Thursday. We currently have a price estimate of $103 for Netflix. For the year 2015, we estimate revenues of $6.79 billion, compared to consensus estimate of $6.83 billion, and EPS of $0.20, compared to a consensus estimate of $0.24.

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Notes:
  1. Sling TV Struggles During ‘Fear the Walking Dead’, August 24, 2015, Multichannel News []
  2. Sling TV Says It Dropped the Ball During March Madness. When Will Web TV Be Ready for Primetime?, April 5, 2015, re/code []
  3. Dish’s Sling TV Experiences Issues During ‘Game of Thrones’ Premiere, April 12, 2015, The Hollywood Reporter []
  4. Sling TV Fails For Pretty Little Liars, August 12, 2015, TVPredictions.com []
  5. Netflix to partner with SoftBank for Japanese launch, August 24, 2015, Market Watch []
  6. Netflix to launch in Japan, its first Asian market, on September 2, August 4, 2015, Venturebeat []
  7. NETFLIX TO LAUNCH IN JAPAN THIS FALL, Feb 04, 2015, Netflix []