consulting
consulting

Archive for the 'TV-over-Internet' Category

Red-button advertising ends on Sky - but where does Anytime+ fit in?

May 5, 2010 by Barry Flynn

BSkyB’s sales-house, Sky Media, has decided to end ‘red-button’ advertising after nine years.  Sky is one of the best-known pay-TV operators offering this application, according to which viewers press the red button on their Sky remote control during a commercial spot to gain extra information about the advertised product, or to receive a brochure or sample in return for entering their details. At its peak in 2006, 160 such campaigns were running on the red-button service.

However, the service was always clunky - particularly when trying to enter personal details via the remote control - and the advent of green-button ‘bookable’ advertising, which allows viewers easily to watch and access long-form ads recorded on their PVRs or in parallel broadcast streams, has rendered the old service obsolete.

While hybridisation of Sky’s HD platform with broadband might have rescued red-button advertising by increasing its functionality and sophistication, comments made last week by Sky confirm that the priority is to use the IP connectivity of its installed HD base to launch a ‘true’ VOD service (‘Anytime+’) later this year.

Sky’s next generation of advertising technology will instead exploit the partitioned hard drive incorporated into later models of the Sky+ box to deliver targeted ad substitution, along the lines of the Sky AdSmart technology currently embedded in its online Sky Player product. This ‘push’-based targeting is unlikely to be very granular, perhaps only addressing homes by zone or region.

It will be interesting to see how Anytime+ integrates this model when it surfaces this year. Because of the quality mis-match between ads delivered over the air and over-the-top video, targeted advertising on VOD pre-roll ads is more likely to be inserted at source. But whether BSkyB’s aim is to make such ads more tightly personalised remains unclear.

Posted in Broadband, Digital Satellite and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments

Digital day-and-date boosts VOD and electronic sell-through

March 27, 2010 by Barry Flynn

Some rare insights into how VOD and electronic sell-through (EST) revenues benefit from a ‘day-and-date’ (D&D) DVD release environment have been afforded by Warner Bros.In the opening keynote at the Screen Digest PEVE Digital Entertainment conference in London, Jim Wuthrich, president of International Home Video and Digital at Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, revealed that the studio’s top VOD title last year was Gran Torino, which bought in $60m from on-demand and EST against a total box office take of $148m.

Two years ago, Warner began releasing its films on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, VOD and EST on the same day. At the time, it said that  margins from D&D VOD were between 60-70%, compared with 20-30% for optical discs, and that controlled  trials of D&D showed practically no effect on DVD  sales.   

The studio is now forecasting that global digital spend (i.e. VOD plus EST) will grow by 19% in 2010 to reach $2.5bn, with EST accounting for $900m of the total.

The Warner experience shows that studios are gradually becoming more comfortable with the digital rental and sell-through of movies. This is part of a wider phenomenon to do with the overall shrinking of video release windows.

D&D release also helps to reduce the incentive for piracy. Given digital’s higher margins and a possible reduction in piracy losses, any resulting drop in Warner’s physical media sell-through and rental business caused by collapsing the windows may be worth putting up with.

Posted in Digital Cable and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments

Studios back ‘Buy Once, Play Anywhere’ with DECE

January 4, 2010 by Barry Flynn

A new cross-industry coalition - the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) - has agreed on a common file format for the distribution of digital content, promising that it will make the concept of ‘Buy Once, Play Anywhere’ a reality. The idea is that the new format can be licensed by any company to package a piece of content, which will then be playable on any DECE-compliant service or device across any network.

DECE boasts some big names*, bringing together most of the big Hollywood studios (Disney being the exception) with major global consumer hardware and software brands such as Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Toshiba, Microsoft and Adobe. However, the distribution networks and pay-TV operators are less well represented: Comcast (poised to own a studio once it acquires NBC Universal) and Cox Communications account for less than half of US cable subs, satellite and IPTV are absent, while Liberty Global is the only European cable owner.

The technical set-up DECE is proposing includes a cloud-based authentication and account management hub called the Digital Rights Locker, to be run by Neustar, which will administer consumers’ rights to their content and store it as required; and a choice of five different proprietary DRM solutions for content security (Adobe Flash Access, CMLA-OMA V2, The Marlin DRM Open Standard, Microsoft PlayReady and Widevine).

Technical barriers placed in the way of consumers wanting to port premium content they have paid for to the device of their choice have been proven to encourage piracy. If successful, DECE could speed up implementation of the ‘Buy Once, Play Anywhere’ concept in connected homes and counter this.

Distribution networks should be aware, however, that the positioning of DECE as a studio-led industry grouping in which they are weakly represented could position it as a bid to disintermediate them, supplying content direct to consumers over the Internet instead of their managed networks (the Digital Rights Locker being viewed as the system’s virtual headend).

They must therefore make it much easier for their customers to consume what they have paid for in whatever way it suits them, and do so fast. This will help reduce churn to any emerging Internet-based alternatives. And they should also encourage more of their counterparts to join DECE so that together they can act as a counterweight to studio interests.

* Adobe, Alcatel-Lucent, Ascent Media Group, Best Buy, Blueprint Digital, CableLabs, Catch Media, Cisco, Comcast, Cox Communications, Deluxe Digital, DivX, Dolby Laboratories, DTS, ExtendMedia, Fox Entertainment Group, HP, Intel, Irdeto, Liberty Global, Lionsgate, Microsoft, MOD Systems, Motorola, Movie Labs, Nagravision, NBC Universal, Netflix, Neustar, Nokia, Panasonic, Paramount Pictures, Philips, RIAA, Rovi, Roxio CinemaNow, Samsung Electronics, Secure Path, Sony, SwitchNAP, Tesco, Thomson, Toshiba, Verimatrix, VeriSign, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Widevine Technologies Inc. and Zoran

Posted in Broadband, IPTV and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments

iPlayer and Xbox: game over?

November 28, 2009 by Adriana Whiteley

According to the UK’s Daily Telegraph, the BBC and Microsoft have “indefinitely” postponed their plans to launch the iPlayer on the Xbox Live platform. The newspaper alleges that the cause was a disagreement over Microsoft’s strategy to enable access to the iPlayer only to its premium subscribers, which would be incompatible with the BBC’s public remit.

The BBC iPlayer is available on more than 20 devices, including games consoles such as the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii, as well as PC and mobile phones. It is also available to Virgin Media’s subscribers.

BBC’s strategy to make the iPlayer available through as many platforms as possible is controversial, with pay-TV providers such as BSkyB complaining of unfair competition from the public service broadcaster. The service is, however, popular with consumers, receiving an average of 75 million requests a month. It has received more than 900 thousand requests through the Nintendo Wii since April 2008 and 100 million views in its first year of partnership with Virgin Media.  

Despite the postponement of iPlayer on the Xbox, multi-platform free catch-up TV has taken hold in the UK and will continue to challenge traditional pay-TV operator business models. High-audience genres such as live sports are not commonly available for free ‘over-the-top’, but the increasing availability of free, popular catch-up content makes basic pay-TV offers less attractive. While the penetration of game consoles is limited, hybrid free-to-air and OTT set-top-boxes will pose an even greater threat to pay-TV operators.  

Posted in Broadband, IPTV and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments

Canalsat and Sky - who needs a dish?

November 23, 2009 by Barry Flynn

French pay-satellite operator Canalsat is to offer non-subscribers access to a subset of its satellite channels over the Internet. Called Canalsat Web TV, the service is separate from the Canal+ VOD service Canalplay, which is available both in ‘over-the-top’ mode and integrated into French ISPs’ IPTV offerings.

Canalsat Web TV offers 63 of around 300 channels available from Canalsat using a dish and decoder. When launched a year ago, it was only available for free as an add-on for Canalsat customers subscribing to its top tier. Now non-subscribers can pay €25/m to access the service, with existing subscribers to the lowest Canalsat tiers paying €7/m extra.

The Web service - which is also available on the iPhone - offers less choice than its satellite equivalent: a mid-range Canalsat tier offering 230 channels via satellite is currently available for €23.90m. However, Canalsat Web TV comes with no strings attached: subscribers can enrol or churn out every month.

The Canalsat move closely resembles a similar initiative by BSkyB in the UK, which opened up its online Sky Player platform to non-subscribers in October. Entry-level is €18/m for just 20 channels.

Both can be seen as experiments which seek to establish the price consumers are willing to pay for the utility of ‘untethered’ viewing of premium channels anywhere in the home, in an environment devoid of contract tie-ins. Such offers also fulfil a secondary purpose for the operators: for existing subscribers, additional, more flexible viewing options help to keep them from churning and migrating to free OTT video; while it’s also an opportunity to showcase premium content to non-subscribers without requiring any commitment.

Posted in Broadband, Digital Satellite, IPTV and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments