CTAM EUROSUMMIT ’10 – BUDAPEST. Cable operators are finding it difficult to secure 3D content because the Hollywood majors and sports rights holders are looking to derive additional revenues from the new format.
“The way the release windows are being managed is that 3D is being handled in a different way and that is causing problems for us both as a channel and as an aggregator,” Jorge Filipe Garcia, head of product, Zon TV, told delegates to the CTAM EuroSummit in Budapest.
“For the first time during the World Cup we have seen rights being brokered on technologies and if that happens again there will be some very interesting conversations going forward”. Garcia added that if Avatar had followed the pattern of normal release windows it would already have been released.
“Hollywood has produced a lot of 3D, but is holding back, so we’re playing in the second league unless we produce it ourselves,” added Benny Salaets, product marketing manager, Telenet. He said that there had been a shift in the attentions of the consumer electronics manufacturers, who after initial interest in joint promotions have turned their attentions to connected TV product. “It is evident that the movie theatres want to make more margins, but the rest of the market needs to make its mind up on where they will position the Blu-ray HD stuff, and when they’ve made up their minds on that we’ll come next.”
Vassillis Serferidis, director, European business development, Samsung Electronics defended the position of the manufacturers that had initially taken the lead on the production of major events such as the World Cup. “There’s a fundamental problem here that in bringing a product to market we say to a cable operator can you put a channel online, but they can’t because they don’t have the content, which is why we have to talk [directly] to the content providers.
Serferidis said he anticipated the approach may change as more 3D content became available during 2011.
