We recently returned from the IPTV World Forum, which was held in London at the end of March 2009. In spite of the ongoing economic crisis, attendance at the event was up by 3% compared with 2008, highlighting the continued growth of IPTV and the resilience of the pay-TV industry as a whole.
One of the highlights of this year’s conference agenda was the addition of a Global Markets stream, primarily featuring case studies of operators from emerging markets. We found the presentation on the Chinese IPTV market particularly interesting, due to the unique regulatory environment in China. Under the Chinese licensing regime, the content owners, such as the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), are virtual IPTV operators, working in partnership with telcos, which supply the underlying broadband infrastructure. The influence of the media on SMG’s BesTV IPTV service can be seen throughout the interface. Content is divided into thematic zones, such as children, news and sports, giving a single entry point to any content in that category, whether it is linear broadcasting, catch-up TV or any other form of video-on-demand (VoD), or advertising, including brand channels. As far as the presentation of content is concerned, BesTV’s interface is more sophisticated than that of many Western European pay-TV operators.
One of the key themes to come out of the conference was IPTV operators’ need to focus on the monetisation of content. Driven by the motto 'Content is king', operators have been increasing the amount of content they offer to their subscribers; most IPTV services now have portfolios of dozens of TV channels, supplemented by, on average, 5000 VoD assets. However, in many cases, this investment in content has failed to result in a corresponding increase in revenue, as consumers are unable to find the programmes they want due to the poor user interfaces. In order to address this issue, Belgacom (which runs one of the most successful IPTV services in Western Europe, in terms of penetration of its broadband subscriber base) created its own dedicated TV channels for its football content, as well as three themed zones (Adrenaline, Family and Premiere) for its movie VoD content: each zone offers easy access to four recommended titles, which are refreshed regularly.
The growing importance of making content more accessible to consumers was underlined by the number of exhibitors at IPTV World Forum from the emerging content recommendation engine market. Using algorithms that analyse data collected from a range of sources, including user profiles and ratings, patterns of content consumption and recommendations from social networks, content recommendation engines aim to create an intelligent user interface with an intimate knowledge of the subscriber. These engines can be used not only to suggest relevant viewing choices to the subscriber, but also to target advertising dynamically – after all, video advertisements can be regarded as just another VoD asset. This will enable IPTV operators to better monetise their valuable content both through increased take-up of VoD services and through advertising revenue. The technology is still in the early stages of development and, in order for it to mature, various issues will need to be ironed out – such as the fact that the TV continues to be a communal, rather than an individual, device, and the various concerns about privacy and targeted advertising.
Another area that seems to be gaining ground this year is the extension of the operator’s reach into the digital home, through home security and energy-monitoring services. On a walk through the exhibition floor, we found a vendor offering this capability integrated into its IPTV middleware.
We will regularly be covering these, and other, IPTV-related developments in our Consumer Content and Applications research programme.