Understanding of Diginets

• According to Nielsen, diginets is a "digital television technology that gives viewers access to local broadcast TV channels broadcast simultaneously by their local TV providers."
• In the U.S., diginets got their start due to the availability of spectrum and extra channels when high-definition television came online "in 2009, when the government changed the way local stations broadcast their signals, moving them from old-fashioned “analog” signals to newer, more efficient “digital” signals."
• Diginets are also known as multicast networks or digital subchannels.

Insights on the Diginet Market

• "The share of U.S. households that acquire their TV signals via over-the-air antenna increased to 20%, or about 24 million homes, from 16% from early 2015 through the end of 2017."
• Diginets’ audiences are growing due to the unexpected rise of cord-cutters (people who abandon their cable subscription) and cord-nevers (those who’ve never subscribed to cable in the first place), as they figure out other ways to watch television.
• The market has also grown due to growing popularity in pairing inexpensive over-the-air antennas with over-the-top streaming subscriptions, such as adding "Buzzr to Pluto TV, which is available as an app on Roku, Apple TV and Sony Connected TVs."

Examples of Diginets in the U.S.

• Some examples of diginets in the U.S. include: MeTV and This TV (owned by Weigel Broadcasting), Antenna TV (owned by Nexstar Media Group), Cozi TV and TeleXitos (owned by NBCUniversal Media), and Buzzr (owned by the North American branch of Freemantle Media).
• MeTV was one of the first diginets to launch, and is considered the highest-rated and best-distributed diginet. It has 27 million people watching it every week.
• Cozi TV is available in more than 90 million homes, and in 82% of the U.S.
• Buzzr is in 88 million U.S. homes.

Summary of Findings

• In our first hour of research, we limited our geographical scope to the U.S., and were able to determine that information on diginets, also known as digital sub-channels or multicast networks is available. We have provided information on some of the players in the diginet market, as well as insights on some drivers of growth. We were not able to find a pre-compiled market size for diginets, however, we shared the proportion of households that acquire their TV signals via over-the-air antenna, which, we learnt, is considered an indicator for the extent of reach of diginets. We also shared statistical insights on the number of homes that have availability of the different diginets.
• In addition to this public search, we scanned our proprietary research database of over 1 million sources and were unable to find any specific research reports that address the stated goals.
• As there was no geographic focus provided to us, we are assuming a US focus. If a more broad approach is desired, for example, a global focus, this would have to be clearly communicated to us in any reply.