Spotlight On The Major Players

By Author: getthe way
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Spotlight on the major players, both the old guard and how they are adapting to brash new

market entrants
The advent of broadband and the internet has mean that no longer do viewers require an

aerial, cable or satellite connection to view the content they know and love. Cord

cutting or the move away from fixed services such as linear TV, satellite and cable

services has been on the rapid increase ever since the proliferation of fast internet

connections, and boy, are the existing TV providers feeling the heat?
The latest developments sweeping the globe and capturing large swathes of viewers are

flexible, consumer tailored and cost effective OTT services such as Miniweb’s woomi

across Europe, Mediaset Premium Play in Italyand particularly Netflix in the US and UK.

These services which enable the viewer to receive the content they specifically desire

when they want it, across multiple devices both in and out of the home makes static,

contractual pay-TV services seem very outdated, and in fact are beating the old guard at

their ...
... own game by cornering the VOD market. Netflix alone has amassed a whopping

20million members worldwide and is starting to even throw its weight around in terms of

content purchasing having increased it spend on content from $180million in 2010 to an

impressive $1.98billion reputed in 2012. It seems the new boys are really packing a

punch.

“Netflix US subscribers watched 80% more streaming video hours than were viewed in the

same period on all US pay-TV VOD.”
TDG March 2012
Responding to these challenges Pay-TV operators and developing their own version of OTT

services to compete with the likes of Netflix. Now TV from BskyB in the UK and TV

Essentials from Time Warner Cable in the US are offering customers pay on demand services

without the contract thus building on their breadth of experience and customer loyalty,

despite Now TV not being branded as Sky, to attempt to claw back some lost ground to the

young infiltrators. Despite subscriber figures slowing for many established Pay TV

services, by offering an entry level service and a diversified product line means that

companies such as Sky are actually bucking the trend and continuing to drive ARPU

(average revenue per user) up year on year, a testament to their understanding of how

best to tackle opposition.

From a hardware perspective, Smart TVs such as Philips and Samsung are delivering

centralised entertainment and content services direct to the user unlike anything seen

before. In fact the concept of a television in the traditional sense in some ways is

being lost forever. The Philips Smart TV dashboard offers content service providers the

opportunity to deliver their offerings direct to the viewer. Monetising this content

through a centralised payment account and bringing apps and social media together in high

definition compliments effectively the rise of cutting edge service providers.

The must praised Xbox 360 from Microsoft is truly the ‘Trojan Horse’ of the battlefield.

Posing as a 7th generation games console but surreptitiously enabling owners to access

and purchase content also means the console is coming down from the bedroom to take

centre stage in the living room, to truly offer an advanced entertainment unit to compete

directly with TV manufacturers, not to mention leveraging existing relationships with

Hollywood studios to jump the licensing hurdle.

Now with Tech giants such as Google building on their online dominance with their

Google-TV and Apple offering their disciples another revolution in effective product

packaging with their television building upon the recently launched iCloud service, it

appears that the bandwagon is quickly becoming crowded and the TV industry could be set

to change even further.

Even the likes of Youtube who are actually commissioning original content to the sum of

$155million and planning 100 specific channels are entering the fray, and rumours

circulating about when Facebook; the real giant of the information age will be awoken to

this huge opportunity to interact with consumers.

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