March Madness—Turner/CBS Nix Fee Option, Add 4-Hour Free Trial

For the 3rd year in a row, Turner and CBS are airing all 67 games of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship simultaneously across 4 nets—TBS, TNT, truTV and CBS—and allowing pay TV subs to authenticate across a suite of streaming applications via their March Madness Live product. But whereas last year the companies charged fans a one-time $3.99/person fee to stream games if they didn’t authenticate, for this tourney they’re offering something new for those who haven’t previously registered via authentication. Here is the strategy behind the new TVE option and additional improvements to the digital product.

More top stories in today’s CableFAX Daily:

 

Speaking about the shift in the model from airing NCAA tourney games regionally to airing them simultaneously, CBS Sports chmn Sean McManus said it’s rare that a network will ask a viewer to leave one game to watch another one on a different network. But in this case, viewer navigation has been the most critical factor.

 

Bigger isn’t necessarily better. TiVo launched TiVo Mini, a new companion box for its Premiere 4 and Premiere XL4 DVRs that allows customers to use TiVo and online services throughout their homes without an additional DVR.

 

NAMIC board chair Michael Armstrong said the organization is looking into claims made in an anonymous email that accused CEO Nicol Turner-Lee of mismanagement of the industry diversity organization. More about the letter here.