Tag Archive for ‘USA’ at Connected TV

Tag Archive for 'USA'

Nielsen: mobile video usage highest in the USA, but still only 5% of subs

January 8, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Back to that perennial source of interest, mobile video.

Nielsen has just published a consumer insight piece about its growth prospects, itself extracted from a new white paper by its telecoms practice (here, note large PDF file).

The overall message is, as we have reported before, that consumer take-up of mobile video remains low, even where lots of handsets have access to it (note that Nielsen is not talking here about mobile broadcast TV, but the one-to-one 3G variety).Nielsen found that in 2008, the overall use of mobile video in the US stood at just 5% of all subscribers - low compared to other mobile media such as Internet access, ringtones and games. In fact, this is high by international standards, Nielsen reckons, with the UK on only 3%, for instance (see table below).

Figure 1: International Mobile Video Penetration (Q3 2008)

Market	Mobile Video Use Amongst Mobile Subscribers
USA	5%
France	4%
Italy	4%
Germany	3%
Spain	3%
Sweden*	3%
UK	3%
China	2%
India	1%
Russia	1%
Brazil	0.2%

Source: The Nielsen CompanyNB Sweden estimate is Q1 2008, US figure is for subs aged 13+, all other markets 15+

Other notable findings:

42% of mobile users in the US access video via a subscription
The top occasion for mobile video use is ‘while waiting for someone or something’ (59% of mobile video users); followed by ‘while travelling away from home’ (51%); and ‘while at home’ (37%) - a result which has been widely replicated in studies of mobile broadcast TV usage
Comedy is most popular form of mobile video content today
In Q3 2008, 54% of mobile video viewers reported average session lengths of 15 minutes-plus
The typical mobile video viewers tunes into their phone for an average of 3hrs 37mins per month

Note that the last figure equates to just 13 minutes or so per day - given the small user base, not really the basis for a mass-market advertising proposition, as yet, particularly given its fragmentation across different mobile video platforms.Nielsen, while realistic about mobile video’s prospects, believes (like Videonuze) that mobile video could take off in 2009, but only on three conditions:

The expanded use of mobile Web and mobile Web video (e.g. You Tube)
The rollout of mobile broadcast TV
An improved advertising subsidization of subscription-based streaming mobile video services

While agreeing on the first point, Connected TV does not see many indications at present that conditions 2) and 3) are likely to be satisfied to the extent that they will lead to a turnaround any time soon. Mobile broadcast TV seems to be moribund, at least in Europe (but see here re analogue variants), and we have a chicken-and-egg situation with the advertisers. They won’t take it seriously as a medium until it becomes much bigger, but it seems it can’t become much bigger without advertising.

Posted in Mobile TV and Research. 0 Comments

IMS Research: Digital cable to be leading HDTV platform in China with 3.2m HD subs by end-2013

January 6, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Some new research out from IMS Research reveals some rare data on the Chinese digital TV market, suggesting - among other things - that digital cable is set to become the country’s dominant digital TV platform by the end of 2009, and the focus for its HDTV rollout. (~~Sorry, no link seems to be available as yet - I’m relying on the press release I’ve been sent~~).

The study, entitled The Worldwide Market for High-Definition TV Equipment & Services, reveals that 46 million homes in twenty-five Chinese cities have now converted from analogue to digital cable, and that 69 million homes will be passed by digital cable by the end of the year. IMS Research is forecasting that 3.2 million of these digital cable households will have the capability of viewing HDTV programming by the end of 2013.

The author of the study, Shane Walker, notes that the main driver behind adoption of HD programming and HDTV products in the Asia-Pacific region has been Japan, with over 12 million HDTV households at the end of 2007 - 90% of the region’s HD households. Other territories, including China, have been held back by lack of availability of localised HD programming and the high cost of consumer equipment.

However, China’s State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has been strongly promoting the concept of a national digital cable network, striving to digitise all cable networks by 2015. According to the latest figures from SARFT, the transition is behind schedule by two years, but China is already one of the world’s largest digital cable markets, surpassing the USA (which had around 37m digital cable subs at the end of 2007, according to the NCTA).

Posted in Digital Cable and Research. 0 Comments

US digital refusenik phenomenon unlikely to be repeated in the UK - but switchover still means lower ratings for the terrestrial nets

January 2, 2009 by Barry Flynn

There’s a lot of buzz - most of it negative - coming out of the US at the moment about the country’s imminent analogue TV switchoff on February 17, 2009.

America is doing it the hard way - the whole country’s being switched off in one go - which has given rise to much talk about the potential for a large number of ‘digital refuseniks’.

Last fall, ABI Research reported that while 70% of viewers planned to attach a DTT set-top box to their TV set, and another 10% planned to switch to cable or satellite, 20% would just let their TV sets go dark.

The European DTT lobby group DigiTAG quotes US government estimates that approximately 15% of US households depend on the terrestrial platform for their primary television viewing, equivalent to around 17 million households - so that would suggest that over three million homes will refuse to make the switch.

And that in turn has led at least one commentator to predict that “February’s switch will have a devastating impact on the ratings of local TV stations and the broadcast networks.”

Could it happen in the UK?

Probably not - at least not because of people refusing to convert to digital. Digital UK’s quarterly tracker reports show that refuseniks - defined as those who say they will not convert any of their analogue TV sets to digital - declined from 3% to 1% between 2006 and 2008, although there were regional variations. And none of the early switchover experience in Borders, the first UK region to begin the switchover process, suggests anything like the US level of resistance.

However, as the UK progresses towards 100% digital TV penetration, the audience share of the main terrestrial networks is likely to continue falling anyway, as more households are introduced to multichannel choice and opt to expand their range of viewing outside the five terrestrial networks.

The Ofcom graph below illustrates what appears to be an inexorable trend. The yellow line (’Other’) represents the irresistible rise of the multichannel universe. Until switchover happens, that universe will continue to increase at the expense of the historical terrestrial channels.

Posted in Digital Terrestrial and Research. 2 Comments