Slingbox mainly used at home

Mipcom 2009 – Cannes. Two years ago, research among Slingbox users in the US and the UK showed that 40% of the users never sling television outside of the home.

“Guess what is the number now,” asked Stuart Collingwood, VP EMEA of Sling Media. “In two years, it went up from 40% to 70%.”

People are using the Slingbox mainly to have an easy to set up and use wireless network at home and send their television programmes to PCs and other devices around the home, “This is fascinating to see,” remarked Collingwood.

At this year’s IBC in Amsterdam, Sling Media’s owners Echostar showed a fully integrated SlingLoaded PVR platform for European digital TV operators, which enables operators to deliver the benefits of home-networking and place-shifting to consumers in a single, user-friendly product format. The product will place-shift content to a wide variety of devices including mobile phones, PMPs, lap-top computers and EchoStar’s wireless TV monitor that can be taken anywhere in the home.

TV programmes can also be delivered to mobile phones, “So far mobile TV as been a disaster on the commercial side. But, people will use it when it is easy to do.” With regards to the duration of a session, 80% of the people watch 15 minutes or longer and 20% watch even an hour in one single session.