Digital Sales Decline

Continuing his UltraViolet skepticism, BTIG's Richard Greenfield points out that the electronic sell-through (EST) market has languished while VOD and digital rentals grew. Notes Greenfield, current numbers suggest that the 4Q10 EST market declined by 8% year over year. Meanwhile, VOD and digital rentals grew by more than 23% in the fourth quarter (although their share of the total market is still relatively small).   For Greenfield's post (and his very interesting charts) go here.  (Registration required.)

In other news from the Street, Goldman Sach's Ingrid Chung labels Netflix a "killer app" for tablets – which, in turn, could be a "killer app" for Netflix.  Chung sees "strong subscriber growth" for the company in 2011.•

MediaCensus Real Numbers – Following the Footprints

With the notable exception of Cablevision, the footprints of the top 10 cable operators haven't changed much over the past year.  Time Warner and Comcast continue to dominate the northeast, Charter and Mediacom lay claim to large swaths of the midwest, Time Warner and Charter hold much of the west coast and Cox is found mostly in the south.  

The big change, of course, is in Cablevision's purchase of Bresnan Communications.  That gives the New-York based MSO a strong foothold in large (though mostly rural) swaths of the Rocky Mountains.  For now, those systems continue to be branded under the Bresnan name.

Although they're not shown on this map due to overlapping territories, footprints for the telco TV giants have also remained fairly static even as their subscriber numbers have grown.  If you'd like to see a separate map for the Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse territories, please write to Robert Lehmann at lehmannr@mediabiz.com.  For a larger PDF version of this top 10 cable map, click here.

Etc: Panning The Verizon iPhone; A $12B Lockout; Ailes Is On It

Tech:  It's now official:  Verizon Wireless will begin offering the Apple iPhone4 with first dibs going to qualified Verizon Wireless customers on Feb. 3. General availability will begin on Thursday Feb. 10.  Of course, no sooner did the news break than cynics launched a pooh-pooh campaign.  Wrote the AP's Peter Svennsson, "The first Verizon iPhone will only work on the older, "3G" network.... (where) data speeds are much slower than new "4G" networks both AT&T and Verizon are building. You also can't talk and surf at the same time with Verizon 3G phones."  But hey, the phone reportedly has a hot spot feature which will make it a must carry for execs checking in to high end hotels, where they charge (ridiculously) for internet service. 

More Tech:  Motorola's XOOM won CNET's "Best of CES" award in the tablet category. --- WiMAX2 will go commercial this year, say industry officials meeting in Taiwan.  The new standard is backwards compatible with the current standard but will offer faster data rates plus wide 20 MHz channels. 

People: Roger Ailes says he told his "guys" at Fox News to "tone it down" in the wake of the Tucson tragedy. He added, "I hope the other side does that" as well.  So there. 

Programming:   ESPN says its telecast of Tuesday night's Tostitos Bowl Championship game between Auburn and Oregon (score:  22-19) received the highest ratings in cable television history with a 16.1 overnight metered market rating.  But note the "cable" caveat.  The ratings were actually down  11.6% from the 2010 broadcast. --- After being bumped off History, "The Kennedys" miniseries has found a Canadian home with Shaw, but the search continues in the US as both Starz and FX have passed. --- Comedy Central will host its first Comedy Awards in NYC on Mar. 26. --- Disney's renamed block of kids programming, "Disney Junior," launches Feb. 14. 

Strategies: Expect more shaking (but no more layoffs) at ABC as ABC News president Ben Sherwood told the the Television Critics Association Winter tour that he and ABC/Disney honcho Anne Sweeney are interested in finding a partner for ABC News like, say, maybe Bloomberg TV.  (First reported by MediaBistro.)

Retrans & Renewals:  DISH and Griffin Communications have a showdown scheduled for this Saturday as the broadcaster threatens to take CBS affiliates KOTV in Tulsa and KWTV in Oklahoma City plus the cities CW affiliates dark if an agreement isn't reached.

Over (Up & Under) There:  Russia's largest cable operator, Rostelecom, is meeting at the end of this month to consider purchasing a 21.8% stake in National Telecommunications (NTK).  In addition, Broadband TV News reports that Uralsvyazinform and North West Telecom  are each eying a 25% stake with a value estimated at $1.324 billion.   NTK has a subscriber base of just under 5M, including key Moscow regions.

Markets & Money: $12B is the potential price tag of an NFL lockout for next season, says Ad Age.  That's for everything from lost TV ad revenue to out-of-work station personnel. 

OTT:  Orb TV is the latest OTT start-up to gain notice, offering the ability to "port anything online or on a home PC to the television via smartphone control," writs SNL Kagan's Dave Hendrick.  For more, go here. 

Partnerships & Deals: Pace Networks won a contract from Canal Digital Sweden for a nationwide upgrade of headends.•