CTAM EuroSummit – Lisbon. France’s Numericable is developing new TV 2.0 applications to take better advantage of the quality of its network, according to Pascal Dormal, MD Belgium and director group development. The scheme includes the usual VOD and catch-up TV elements, but also user generated content from the Daily Motion site that is being ported to the TV, widgets, pop-ups, search tools and personal channels.
The first project is a personalised music channel, known as ZooND, that Numericable subscribers can create and programme. People can rate or skip videoclips, choose music categories, tell the channel the mood they are in (positive or negative), and choose themes in order to create their own look and feel. This is also an integration with Facebook integration, allowing viewers to send their favourite clips to their friends.
Numericable is planning to extend the personalisation to other genres, beginning with children’s. “And we offer it to channels and brands.”
Dormal also told the audience that Numericable claims the name ‘fiber power’ to emphasise the quality of the network. Independent research has shown that 43% of French IPTV subscribers have issues with the image quality.
Interestingly, the cable does not tier its broadband product, but automatically delivers the fastest broadband speed possible to the customer. Pricing is very competitive with a €31.90 price tag for 100 Mbps, 100 TV channels including HD and VOD and a Europe wide calling plan.
Numericable currently serves about 3.5 million homes with 1,037,000 broadband customers and 753,000 telephony connections. There are 195,000 100 Mbps broadband customers. ARPU averages around EUR 40. The networks passes 8.3 million homes with its networkd capable of Triple Play, TV, HD and VOD.
