It’s been interesting to watch how the big cable companies have been trying to battle cord-cutting. Comcast has had a product for a while that is aimed directly at cord-cutters. It’s labeled as Flex and is a video streaming service that is only available to Comcast broadband customers who are not buying a Comcast TV product.
Comcast hoped that Flex would be a direct competitor to Roku, Amazon Firestick, and Google Chrome. The Flex product clearly wants to keep customers who cut the cord inside the Comcast umbrella.
The product delivers 10,000 programs including Comcast content and content from other free online services like Pluto, Xumo, and Tubi. Content comes with commercials. For now, Comcast is also throwing in Comcast’s paid service Peacock for free. The Flex platform also gives customers an easy portal to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, and Hulu.
Flex is certainly price right and currently is free for Xfinity broadband customers. When first introduced, Comcast was charging $4.95. Flex still requires the Comcast settop box and remote. I’m guessing the price came down when Comcast found few buyers willing to rent a box to get free content.
There is a big difference between Flex and competitors like Firestick or Roku in that customers can only use the apps on the platform that Comcast has installed. No additional apps for video or music services can be added to the app. This is probably the biggest disadvantage of Flex in that people are using a lot of different video apps online. I have an Amazon Firestick and it will let me add any online video app regardless of whether the app provider has a deal with Amazon.
When Comcast first introduced the Flex product, I thought the company wanted to become another superbundler like Amazon. Amazon allows customers to buy a subscription to a huge array of different online apps, and I assume Amazon gets a slice of revenue for delivering customers to partner video platforms. There are many video services for which Amazon has become the primary marketing channel. Amazon even suggests content that requires a subscription to the partner apps. The superbundler concept is likely profitable. Amazon has to be doing well taking a small slice of the revenue stream from nearly one hundred other platforms.
Amazon’s made it clear a few years ago that it wanted to become the one-stop shop for online video content, and Amazon has bundled together far more content than anybody else. But in the last year, we’ve seen the rise of proprietary platforms from CBS, Apple, Disney, and others including Comcast’s Peacock that won’t cross-market with Amazon and others. It’s not looking like any one bundler is going to be able to pull together a giant percentage of online video content.
It’s less clear how Comcast intends to benefit from Flex. I assume Comcast gets a share of ad revenues generated on platforms like Pluto. But there doesn’t seem to any other major benefit to the company for operating the Flex program, particularly since they are providing the settop box to Flex customers for free. The plan probably made financial sense at a monthly $4.95 rate, but it’s hard to see the long-term benefit to Comcast of offering a free service. Perhaps the one big benefit to Comcast is that the settop box used for Flex can also be used to control smart home and other Comcast products. Perhaps the company is using Flex to draw in customers for these other products.
Comcast has one big advantage over anybody else in the industry in that every Flex customer is already a Comcast broadband customer. That should mean that Comcast has little incremental cost for delivering the free content offered by Flex. It’s easy to forget that Netflix and all of the other online providers must maintain an expensive network to enable them to disseminate video content.
The Flex product is somewhat symbolic of the attempt for industry players to somehow be relevant in the online video market. The product doesn’t drive direct revenue for Comcast even though the company must provide a settop box. The platform is proprietary, which seems to be the new norm for video platforms. It’s one more of the many confusing choices faced by cord-cutters.
