ITV chief executive Adam Crozier has said the connected TV market is far from fully developed and presents itself as having it all to play for.
Brushing aside the recent travails of the hybrid platform YouView, in which ITV is a partner alongside the BBC, Arqiva, BT and TalkTalk, Crozier told the Broadcasting Press Guild that people had underestimated the technological challenges involved in putting the platform together. the real strength would be in the people behind the platform, which like Freeview would be from names that people trusted.
“VOD accounts for less than one per cent of viewing and I can’t see the suggestion from anybody that in three years it will be more than three times that,” said Crozier.
ITV is in the process of finalising its own pay-TV strategy that is expected to be annouced early next year. Crozier confirmed the broadcaster was in talks with a number of different platforms and that they included Netflix and Lovefilm.
Echoing comments made by RTL executive Gerhard Zeiler at the RTS Cambridge event in September Crozier said there was a difference between catch up rights and VOD and archive, which needed less control. “If you think of ITV as a shop I don’t see a problem with being on someone else’s high street, I just want to keep control of what is sold.”
Broadband TV News understands that ITV will be working with PayWizard to provide a payment mechanism for its online content. Crozier made clear that ITV’s late entry was more to do with the technology he inherited rather than the collection of micro or subscription payments, which he said was straightforward.
ITV has already tested online only content for series such as scripted reality The Only Way is Essex, though he admitted that this was without a fee. Pay-TV channels are an option, including international, though he ruled out making ITV1, 2, 3 or 4 full time pay channels.
