The Media Sector Meltdown

August 2015 saw the emergence of a new narrative about the cable-oriented media: the sector is doomed to suffer from cord-cutting, It was the media meltdown.

The triggering event was Disney's earnings report, with CEO Bob Iger reported declines in the number of ESPN subscribers.

The retail price of basic cable goes up every year, so, unless there is a substantial amount of additional value being provided by the cable/DBS/telco operator, the service become slightly less attractive than it was the year earlier. Additionally, even with enhancements to the service itself (e.g., more and better original programming, VOD and TV Everywhere access to more and more programming), at a certain price level, the service is simply unaffordable to some segments of the market.

The substitution effect is another part of the story. Every year the Internet-delivered video options for consumers have improved. In the last year, HBO Now and Showtime over-the-top services brought content previously available only via a multichannel video subscription to customers without such a subscription.

Theoretically ESPN could do the same, but the economic model for it is not the same. HBO and Showtime are sold a la carte by all distributors and carry no advertising, ESPN is sold in the basic package and generates a lot of advertising revenue. If ESPN sells itself direct to consumer, it won't be in a big, broad package, it will be effectively a la carte-ish (maybe packaged with the other Disney-owned channels) and not everyone who wants CNN, USA, and A&E will get it, as they typically do now, with a basic cable package. That's not good for ESPN either as its ability to collect license fees and generate advertising from the casual- or non-sports fan, the core of its business model, will be put in jeopardy.

ESPN arguably is the biggest beneficiary of the basic cable bundle. It should be the last service to explore leaving it.

While the returns from YouTube's investment in original content are mixed, at best, the content on that platform is not going away and some stars have emerged, even if they don't look like what we have been used to.

Pewdiepie, the most popular star on YouTube, takes viewers through his video game play

Netflix's original content continues to get good press and high marks from viewers, with new seasons of House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and the unlikely series prequel to cult movie Wet Hot American Summer.

Add to this story two high profile affiliate relations debacles: Viacom's disappearance from Suddenlink and Weather Channel's exit from Verizon FiOS. While these stories appear similar, they are very different.

The programming on the Weather Channel is simply increasingly irrelevant with the availability of its core functionality readily available on both computers and phones (often from the Weather Channel's own apps or weather.com or weatherunderground.com). Before ubiquitous internet access, a dependable destination for weather information on cable TV was pretty valuable. Now, not so much.

The Weather Channel or The Weather Channel app?

However, an even bigger issue for the Weather Channel in its dealings with the MVPDs is that it is on its own. While managed by Comcast's NBCU, it is not bundled with their must-have networks (NBC, Telemundo, USA, Syfy, MSNBC, CNBC, E!, Bravo). So, while Weather Channel is arguably more valuable than NBCU's second tier networks (Oxygen, Chiller, Cloo, Esquire, Sprout), none of those networks have to negotiate on their own. Not coincidentally, none of them have been prominently dropped by MVPDs either. It would not be surprising if Comcast buys out its Weather Company partners -- in one swoop it could solve Weather Channel's fundamental problem (as could any other large programming company. Weather Channel would be a fine fit for Fox, CBS, Disney/ABC or Turner Broadcasting as well; all of them distribute 24/7 live programming services similar to Weather. Bundling is very powerful.

it can work wonders with your customers as well!

Viacom's departure from Suddenlink is harder to explain, but explainable nonetheless. While Viacom critics believe that its programming is not that important and/or that it sold too many of its reruns of its children's programming to Netflix, the fact is that Viacom has a number of attractive, high profile original programs on Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 and  TV Land. While its programming has had considerable problems of late, it has a broad enough portfolio of channels that it shouldn't be that vulnerable.

What may have happened is that while its programming was much hotter, Viacom got good deals out of larger cable operators who dominate the large markets (e.g., Cox, Charter, Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner) and, when it got to Suddenlink offered them the same deal even though a few years later its content had considerably less appeal. especially in Suddenlink's smaller, rural areas.

Still, the people at Viacom are not stupid and less money is always better than no money. It is, unless, it costs Viacom, via most-favored-nations "give backs" with the big operators, more than it would collect from Suddenlink in both its affiliate fees and the advertising that it can generate from its viewership in Suddenlink markets -- which, of course, is 0 if the Viacom channels are not carried. Since Suddenlink represents only about 1% of multichannel households, it is likely that is the underlying issue for Viacom.

However the numbers line up, the other aspect of being part of the basic cable package is the belief among the distributors that your channels HAVE to be in the basic cable package. Suddenlink is now providing data to the industry of exactly how important the Viacom channels have been to them. There is the possibility that, while Suddenlink may be ahead losing some of its video subscribers without Viacom, the loss would be greater for other distributors who operate in markets where Viacom programming is more popular and/or who have greater margins on their video customers than Suddenlink does on its video customers. Local cable advertising, for example, is considerably more lucrative for the major-DMA-covering large operators than for a single system in a non-major DMA.

Changes in TV watching behavior have not caught up with the TV measurement. Everyone knows that younger people are watching TV programs on tablets and computers -- whether through password sharing, Netflix, or actual TV Everywhere use. Yet Nielsen only counts viewership on these platforms if that program is being watched live, even though a disproportionate amount of the viewing on these platforms is likely VOD.

Young people are not, generally speaking, abandoning multichannel television to watch original content on YouTube and other web sites. However, some big changes are taking place. Young viewers' tastes turn on a dime and they have definitely turned away from some of the services they used to lap up (and toward...zombies). Also, the ways that they are watching programming are shifting significantly. When you've got a strong, significant, profitable business, change is scary and two kinds of change are scarier still.

Update (25 November 2015): Eric Jackson's email newsletter details the enormous cost to Disney of ESPN's drop in subscribers. There are some issues with using Nielsen and paid subs interchangeably (they measure slightly different things and Nielsen's numbers are typically 10% higher for a cable network), but the underlying point is on-target as is his "follow the money" approach.

An OTT Watershed Moment

We could soon be looking at the watershed moment for over-the-top video: According to a Multichannel News posting, that the FCC is considering making "being a multichannel video program distributor" (MVPD) an option for online video providers (the conclusion is implied from the actual FCC .pdf release). To date, online video providers have not been able to be considered MVPDs because they do not own the facilities that transmit channels of programming to end users.

Sony's OTT video offering will be delivered to its PlayStation game consoles

In one fell swoop, this could clear up three big issues for potential OTT providers who are direct MVPD competitors, offering a package of linear "cable TV" networks.

#1 Access to top name-brand broadcast and cable network programming

Much like cable and DBS, any MVPD would have the right to negotiate with broadcast TV stations over retransmission consent and the stations would have the right to demand must-carry. For example, Aereo, which the Supreme Court declared was not legal because it distributed programming like an MVPD, but was denied the right to be an MVPD when it used the Supreme Court's argument at the US Copyright Office, would no longer be in a legal no-man's-land. Clarity on this point is overdue, as David Oxenford in BroadcastLawBlog notes, the Sky Angel case has been before the FCC for a long time, long enough, it turns out, for Sky Angel to go bust in its over-the-top incarnation.

#2 A way around online streaming restrictions in MVPD affiliation agreements

Restricting the distribution of cable programming on some "other" technology was a backdoor way to get some exclusivity, now the other MVPDs will have to negotiate exclusivity versus other MVPD competitors through the front door and many programmers have, not unreasonably, been historically reluctant to do exclusive deals that reduce MVPD competition.

#3 A way around rights issues for cable TV programming and advertising (e.g., SAG members get paid differently for commercials produced for the Internet than for those produced for TV)

Right now, only companies that explicitly clear "Internet rights" are allowed to put the programs on their TV channels on the Internet. Once an online video distributor is an MVPD, the linear stream of programs, as presented on a cable program service like Lifetime, can go to any MVPD.

[If the programmer owns the program and all its rights, like Major League Baseball, one can find MLB Extra Innings on cable TV or DBS (with internet streaming as added-value for "authenticated" subscribers), or as a stand-alone OTT offering at mlb.tv (although the TV commercials are usually not included in the Internet stream as the advertisers do not want to pay the performers for both the TV and Internet exhibition).]

Unfortunately for the soon-to-be-nascent-direct-MVPD-competitor, the over-the-top business still has two big remaining issues:

#1 Bandwidth caps

It might be politically poisonous for a cable MSO facing a direct competitor delivering "cable TV service" over-the-top to announce bandwidth caps that would make it uneconomic for any of their customers to use such a service. That said, the cable industry, like many other industries, has historically looked to protect its business against competition. Certainly that's what Netflix thought Comcast was doing when the streaming performance of Netflix customers using Comcast as their ISP declined in late 2013. Bandwidth caps would be great protection for MSOs against online video competition.

#2 The reality of the marketplace

This combines several issues: Is the consumer offering attractive enough? Are the programmers willing to negotiate with these new MVPDs? Are there terms that the programmers will find attractive enough that create a business opportunity for the new MVPDs? On the first one, Sony's rumored $80 per month offering is considerably more expensive than many had hoped.

Cable TV programmers have been supportive of new, clearly legal entrants to the program distribution business. More competition among distributors is always good news for the program suppliers who now have a new set of customers. Viacom certainly thinks so. Going over-the-top and preserving the existing pay-TV packaging (and business model) appears to be more attractive than going over-the-top on one's own like World Wrestling Entertainment's $9.99 monthly offering.

Rather than going-head-on against the pay-TV incumbents, it would seem that a more prudent course for new MVPDs would be to find a segment of the marketplace that is un- or poorly-served by the incumbents, but which also has high broadband Internet penetration. That may be a difficult combination to find.

My earlier post: The Virtual MSO Opportunity (19 July 2013)
Update (14 October 2014): Aereo asks the FCC to classify it as an MVPD (via Deadline), Brian Fung in the Washington Post thinks Aereo is making this request only in the short-term
Update (29 October 2014): FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler makes his views explicit in an FCC blog post "Tech Transitions, Video, and the Future". In short, he supports OTT video providers getting the rights that MVPDs have, believing that it will foster competition.

What Have We Learned About Over-the-Top Video and What We Can Expect To See

The fragmentation of over-the-top devices is a tremendous pain for programmers. Not only do Roku, Samsung Blu-ray players, Sony TVs, XBoxes and iPhones require separately produced apps, they often require separately encoded video. The implication is that only the most ubiquitous programmers (e.g., Netflix) will find it worthwhile to be on every platform and that the smaller programmers will go to the most open ("small" here, means, in part "can't afford the risk of having my app be rejected") and popular platform, which is probably very good news for Roku. This area of the business is bound for a shakeout.

Over-the-top programming is already very competitive with cable offerings in a few small areas of the business: new hit movies (can be rented from iTunes as easily as cable VOD), out-of-market sports packages other than the DirecTV-exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket (e.g., MLB Extra Innings) and adult video (see prior post on this topic). Over-the-top is least competitive with cable in offering basic and premium cable networks. Aereo, if it survives the legal challenges it faces, represents a portion of the package, for those who can not or do not want to use their own antenna to pick up free broadcast television.

It is difficult to imagine that over-the-top video will have the same access to "cable" content in the future than it had in the past. Cable programmers make too much money selling their services to multichannel distributors (and the advertising on such services to major national advertisers). Starz walking away from renewing a deal Netflix is the best example of this. As noted in a New York Times article about the 2012 DirecTV-Viacom deal "free access to people who don’t subscribe to DirecTV or another similar distributor is likely to become more restrictive, thereby fortifying the existing model of TV distribution." Someday over-the-top providers might be able to provide some programmers with enough money to make it worth their while to jeopardize their relationships with traditional multichannel distributors, but that day does not appear to be in the next year or two. Nothing -- short of new governmental regulation, that is -- can force a critical mass of cable programmers to sell to the potential disruptors of the multichannel ecosystem.

Over-the-top programming often requires juggling multiple devices and subscriptions. The most satisfying way to "replace" a multichannel subscription probably involves a combination of Netflix, Hulu Plus, iTunes rentals, Aereo, Roku services, over-the-air broadcast signals, etc. and none of them are available on any one device. (Although apps like Fanhattan could help consumer's manage the juggling).

Over-the-top content providers can and will develop their own original content, but it is unclear if this content will be a suitable replacement for a multichannel subscription. Netflix with its original content initiative and YouTube with its investment in original channels are pouring resources into original programming. If there is a return on this investment and it continues, it will make over-the-top more attractive. On some level it does not matter if the new content is a good substitute for what comes with a multichannel subscription, programming is rarely a zero-sum game. The growth of VHS rental didn't hamper the growth of cable subscriptions, but it did destroy the repertory movie house. One notes that the last attempt to enter the multichannel business head-on with original content was Cablevision's Voom and that didn't work out very well.

The rising price of a multichannel video subscription is the one given. With more distributor competition (hello, Google Fiber), the programmers are in a strong position to raise prices. Even Viacom (which "lost" the PR battle in its standoff with DirecTV), still managed to get a 20% price increase -- not bad for a losing effort, if not the 30% they had sought initially.

The distributors, resigned to paying more for content, are seeing what they CAN get at the negotiating table. Two things come to mind: greater TV Everywhere rights (an interesting #1 on this list) and greater restrictions on the amount and quality of content that cable programmers can put online for free or sell to over-the-top providers. Given the small incremental cost of the former and the relatively small revenue contribution over-the-top sources are providing today, these tradeoffs are not that difficult for cable programmers to accept.

The metaphorical "pricing umbrella"

As multichannel prices rise, to the extent that TV Everywhere is very valuable to the consumer, he or she will be content. To the extent that it isn't that valuable, he or she is a loser. However, the consumer facing a higher multichannel bill now has more incentive (and more money) to consider alternatives. In other words, the higher multichannel bill creates a pricing umbrella for over-the-top video.

This is NOT what I mean by over-the-top video

TWCable iPad App revised - what's new in 2.0

On 7 July 2011, Time Warner Cable released its second version of its popular and within-the-industry controversial iPad app.  The app take some major steps forward adding significant functionality, but seems very much like a work-in-progress rather that a polished piece of software.


The first noticeable change in the 2.0 TWCable TV iPad app is that its splash screen is now purple, unlike the avocado shade of 1.0 (my review here).  Branding people will note that TWC's web site is blue with a white logo, some of its trucks are painted with a lime-colored logo on a white field and this app has a white logo on a purple background.

The second change is the semi-persistent navigation below offers 4 choices:  Live TV, Guide, DVR and Settings.  Previously, the only function was Live TV.

Starting with the most mundane, Settings has 3 choices:  Favorites (your list of your favorite channels -- which starts out empty), Devices (which set top box do you want to control via the iPad) and Sign Out.

The Guide button adds new functionality -- the ability to use the iPad app as a remote control for a set top box.  The guide is the familiar scrolling electronic programming guide (EPG) from digital cable.  It launches on channel 1.  It is not the guide for the channels on the app.  When a channel is touched, the user is given the choice of "Watch Now" or "Add to Favorites".  The guide does not require that you look at all 1000 or so channels on the system, it gives a choice of 3 views:  All Channels, Favorites (more on this later) or just the HD channels.  One missing choice, that would seem to be an easy addition would be the list of the channels to which the users subscribes; this would also be much more useful than "All Channels".

DVR also adds new functionality -- the list of Scheduled Recordings on the connected cable box, but not what has already been recorded (and, there is no way to play those recordings via the iPad).  This functionality is provided on TWC's website.

Live TV works much as it did in 1.0, except that users have lost the "Last Five Channels Viewed" navigation option from the previous version.  That's a step backward -- it was one of the innovative navigation features (i.e., something other than a scrolling guide and channel up/channel down).  The Favorites list does not apply to Live TV viewed via the app, only to the set top box guide.

There is significant latency in switching channels.  The app also seems buggy, it crashed twice on me in a short period of time.

There are 15 new channels on the app:  Africa, Cooking, Discovery Health & Fit, DIY, ESPN Classic, Gol, Gospel Music, Great American Country, Jewish Life, Mav, Shop NBC, Smithsonian, Tennis, Universal and Word.  Seven of these are SD, the other eight are HD.  Live sports events have been beefed up with Gol and Tennis, previously only Golf was in that category (ESPNews and ESPN Classic don't show live events).

In terms of new programming ground, the app now contains HD-only services (Smithsonian and Universal), the previous version did not.  The other broad categories of what is not carried continue to be:

• any broadcast channels
• any premium channels (e.g., HBO, Showtime, Starz)
• anything from Viacom (e.g., Nick, MTV, Comedy, Spike)

Channel list in the order they appear in the app is below (which is slightly changed from before).  By my count there are 83 channels.  For those scoring at home, 22 are SD (at least 3 of which are carried in HD on the system - Bloomberg, Cooking and Sundance).  Time Warner Cable is claiming that there are more than 100.  The reason for the discrepancy might be that some of the channels are not available on my system and that I do not subscribe to some of the channels (although I get most everything TWC offers in Northern Manhattan).  I have confirmed that TWC only provides access to services which the subscriber receives on TV. The new additions are in italics:

1. A&E HD
2. ABC Family HD
3. Africa Channel HD
4. AMC HD
5. Animal Planet HD
6. Bio HD
7. Bloomberg (still SD)
8. Boomerang (SD)
9. Bravo HD
10. Cartoon Network HD
11. Chiller (SD)
12. CNBC HD+
13. CNBC World (SD)
14. CNN HD
15. CNN International (SD)
16. Cooking Channel (SD)
17. C-SPAN HD
18. C-SPAN2 HD
19. C-SPAN3 HD
20. Current TV (SD)
21. Discovery Channel HD
22. Discovery Fit & Health (SD)
23. Disney Channel HD
24. Disney XD HD
25. DIY HD
26. E! HD
27. ESPN Classic (SD) - this service is not on the WatchESPN app
28. ESPNews HD
29. EWTN SD
30. Food Network HD
31. Fox Business HD
32. Fox News HD
33. FX HD
34. G4 HD
35. Galavision HD
36. Gol TV HD
37. Golf HD
38. Gospel Music HD
39. Great American Country (SD)
40. GSN (looks like HD)
41. Hallmark Channel HD
42. HGTV HD
43. History HD
44. History International HD
45. HLN HD
46. Home Shopping Network HD
47. Hub HD
48. IFC HD
49. Investigation Discovery HD
50. Jewelry Television by ACN (SD) -- the weird branding continues
51. Jewish Life TV (SD)
52. Lifetime HD
53. Lifetime Movie Network HD
54. Lifetime Real Women (SD)
55. Mav TV HD
56. Military Channel (SD)
57. MSNBC HD
58. Mun2 (SD)
59. National Geographic HD
60. National Geographic Wild HD
61. NY1 News HD
62. NY1 Noticias for Time Warner (SD) -- odd "for TW" branding continues
63. Oprah Winfrey Network HD
64. Ovation (SD)
65. Oxygen HD
66. Planet Green HD
67. QVC HD
68. Reelz Channel HD
69. Science HD
70. Shop NBC (SD)
71. Sleuth (SD)
72. Smithsonian HD
73. SoapNet (SD)
74. Style HD
75. Sundance (still, oddly SD)
76. SyFy HD
77. Tennis Channel HD
78. TLC HD
79. Travel Channel HD
80. TruTV HD
81. Turner Classic Movies HD
82. TV Guide HD
83. TV One HD
84. Universal HD
85. USA HD
86. WE tv HD
87. Word Network (SD)

No longer on the app -- Wedding Central, which was shut down on July 1, 2011.  This review is of the Version described in the iPad Settings section as "Developer Build", for reasons that are unclear to me.  It is Version 2.0.0 in iTunes.

TWCable iPad App Review

I recently got an iPad, primarily to better understand the multichannel TV and over-the-top video apps that have generated so much discussion in the video business.

One of the biggest public disputes has been over the iPad app from Time Warner Cable, artlessly called TWCable TV.  Discovery, Fox and Viacom sued over the inclusion of their channels in the app.  While Discovery and Fox appear to have settled their issues with TWC, the Viacom services are still missing from the app.  The app works only in your home and only if you subscribe to both cable TV and broadband service from TWC.

The app is simple, good-looking and intuitive.  It is a fine start.

The app launches with a splash screen of a TWC logo on an avocado green background.  I have never seen that color associated with the company previously.  Much like the app's name, one wonders if the  branding people approved it.  [Addition:  I have since seen this green -- or a more lime-ish tint -- on TWC trucks, but the website graphics are blue, the color I had always associated with the company.]

It feels new.  This is not the clunky navigation from the set-top box ported to a new platform. It does feel like an iPad app.  It is a limited functionality app.  You can only watch live TV and only of the handful of channels that they have provided.  When you leave the app and return, it returns you to the last viewed channel, just like a regular TV

Sign up is via the TWC username and email that you need for programming your DVR from their website (which, by the way, doesn't work that well) and other account management functions.  Blessedly, this only needs to be done once.

The app only works in landscape orientation.  The guide is a translucent list of channels that appears on the left side and starts when you launch the app.  If you tap on on the screen on the right side, it goes away and the channel you are watching expands to fill the iPad's width (preserving the aspect ratio).

The guide fits eight channels at a time and displays the channel logo (small, not always that clear), the title of current show, one line of description about the episode and the start time and title of the next show.  When the guide comes up, a a translucent bar at the top also comes up that provides 2 buttons.  On the right is "Channel History" which which shows and provides one-click-access to the last four channels that you have viewed.  This is an interesting interface choice that adds some functionality to the ubiquitous "last channel" buttons on TV remotes.  On the left is the "Log Out" button, although I can't understand why anyone would ever do so in normal use.

The guide and top bar will disappear on their own after a short while.  To bring back the guide, tap on the screen.  There is significant latency switching between channels.  This is not a dream device for ADD channel surfers.  The video generally worked well.  I had some experiences of waiting for it to reload/buffer video when I was not switching channels.

There is no way to reorder the channel lineup or bookmark favorite channels.

The channels carried are a mix of services, with a decided preference for HD versions, which is a little odd given the iPad's 4:3 aspect ratio.  The full list of the 73 channels carried is below; by my count 16 are SD channels.  The app originally launched with 32 channels.  It is unclear to me if the app's channel lineup can be revised on the fly or if TWC has to issue an updated version of the app whenever it wants to make a change.
What isn't carried:

• any broadcast channels (not even thinly-viewed digital multiplex feeds like ABC's Living Well)
• any premium channels
• anything from Viacom (e.g., Nick, MTV, Comedy, Spike)
• any of the HD-only services (e.g., Smithsonian, MGM, HD Theatre)

Given how sports-driven most subscription television marketing is and how crucial sports is seen for most early adopter video innovations, there is little sports programming in the app.  Golf Channel is the only full-time sports service in the lineup.  None of the New York regional sports networks are available.  The ESPNs are not, except ESPNews; they are available on the WatchESPN app.  Versus, MLB, NBA, NHL, Tennis, Big Ten, Gol, Speed, Fox Soccer...none of them are available.  Nor are TNT and TBS which have significant slates of sports.  In contrast, women-targeted services are very well represented:  3 Lifetime services, E!, HGTV, Food, Oxygen, WE, Style and Wedding Central.

My television subscription includes all of the 73 channels listed below.  It is unclear to me if TWC blocks out the digital tier or HD channels for customers who do not subscribe to them. Conversely, I wonder if some of the foreign language services that I do not see on the app are available to other customers who do subscribe to them.

There is no access to the recorded content on your DVR.  There is no closed captioning or SAP.  There is no-access to any on demand content.  The only "switch" in the settings panel is "Remember password".  This is version 1.0.2008 of the software.

In short, if you have an iPad the app is well worth downloading and looks like it will add some value to a cable subscription.  I'm not sure that I will end up using it that much given its limited functionality and the presence of more-fully-featured actual TVs in my household.

In terms of the business dispute, TWC is taking the position that because the app only works in the home, the iPad is essentially operating as another television and its rights to carry channels on it are covered by its rights in its regular affiliation agreements.  There is certainly a lot of support for the programmer's side of the argument that this is not another television (for starters, no must-carry broadcast channels are carried) and that these rights have to be negotiated separately.

The list of channels carried.  The name is how it appears in the top bar when selected (except for the comments in parentheses or after the dashes).  The numbers do not appear on the guide, that's just a function of this list.

1. A&E HD
2. ABC Family HD
3. AMC HD
4. Animal Planet HD
5. Bio HD
6. Bloomberg TV (oddly only in SD, however the Bloomberg HD feed just launched on this system)
7. Boomerang (SD)
8. Bravo HD
9. CNBC HD+
10. CNBC World (SD)
11. CNN HD
12. CNN International (SD)
13. C-SPAN HD
14. C-SPAN2 HD
15. C-SPAN3 HD
16. Cartoon Network HD
17. Chiller (SD)
18. CurrentTV (SD)
19. Discovery Channel HD
20. Disney Channel HD
21. Disney XD HD
22. E! HD
23. ESPNews HD (not ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU all of which are on the WatchESPN app, which does not have ESPNews HD).
24. Eternal Word Television Network (SD, although the HD feed is carried on the system)
25. FX HD
26. Food Network HD
27. Fox Business HD
28. Fox News HD
29. G4 HD
30. GSN (looks like HD)
31. Galavision HD
32. Golf Channel HD
33. HGTV HD
34. HLN HD
35. Hub HD
36. Hallmark Channel HD
37. History HD
38. History International HD
39. Home Shopping Network HD
40. IFC HD
41. Investigation Discovery HD
42. Jewelry Television by ACN (SD) -- weird to see such a lengthy name for an obscure channel
43. Lifetime HD (which launched the same day as Bloomberg HD)
44. Lifetime Movie Network HD
45. Lifetime Real Women (SD)
46. MSNBC HD
47. Military Channel (SD)
48. Mun2 (SD)
49. NY1 News HD
50. NY1 Noticias for Time Warner (SD) -- odd branding in the "for Time Warner"
51. National Geographic HD
52. National Geographic Wild HD
53. Oprah Winfrey Network HD
54. Ovation TV (SD)
55. Oxygen HD
56. Planet Green HD
57. QVC HD
58. Reelz Channel HD
59. Science Channel HD
60. Sleuth (SD)
61. SoapNet (SD)
62. Style HD
63. Sundance Channel (SD, although the HD feed is carried on the system -- a particularly odd choice for a movie service)
64. SyFy HD
65. TLC HD
66. TV Guide Network HD
67. TV One HD
68. Travel Channel HD
69. Turner Classic Movies HD
70. USA HD
71. WE tv HD
72. Wedding Central HD
73. truTV HD