The conference sessions that accompanied this year’s TV Connect, which took place at London Olympia on March 19-21, provided many useful insights into where the industry is heading.
Arguably, the best presentations took place on the last day, with two keynotes being of particular interest. The first was given by Bob Zitter, EVP and CTO at HBO, who took the unusual step of changing his talk’s title at the last moment to Technology: catalyst for change in TV.
A TV industry veteran and soon to retire, Zitter charted the history of HBO and how it had pioneered satellite (1985) and then digital (1992) TV. He also said that the company had developed the model for HBO Go five years ago, basing it on the realisation that IP technology was changing video distribution.
Zitter’s most powerful comments were on the future of the TV industry, and in particular such technologies as 3D and 4K. The former, in his view, was as good as dead if it continued to use glasses, while the latter would have to overcome major hurdles if it were to succeed.
In the case of 4K – and indeed 8K – demand is currently coming from digital cinema, which wants it in the production of movies.
However, Zitter said he was “very sceptical that consumers will want to buy it”, adding that viewers can only tell the difference between HD and 4K on sets of at least 60-70 inches. Given that only 25% of homes in the US can accommodate such sets, there is clearly also a practical problem in the adoption of 4K.
Daniel Danker, GM iPlayer, meanwhile made an impassioned plea for the industry to work together in order to ensure that connected TV succeeds. In his view, this is a critical time in its development and there is a real chance that it could fail, given that, for instance, only 2% of content currently watched on iPlayer is on connected TVs.
Danker argued that innovation has been used as an excuse for delivering sloppy service. There is currently a separation between live and internet TV and the two have to be brought together in a seamless transition that will give “delight” to viewers.
For its part, the BBC has already made a move to do just this through its Connected Red Button service. Launched in December 2012, it is a revamp of the popular Red Button, which really came into its own during coverage of the London Olympics just a few months earlier.
Danker said that TV has to be made consistent, just like cars, which despite different makes and models have common attributes. The technology that powers the user experience should be the same.
The last day of the conference also included a stream on managing media assets in which Ovum provided some highly surprising research data on multiscreen. Just published, it included the statistics that the total spend on rights for multiscreen in the top 45 media markets now amounts to $3.6 billion (€2.8 billion) and – somewhat disappointingly – that only 5% of multiscreen services are currently profitable.
Ovum also made the prediction, based on research undertaken just prior to IBC 2012, that by 2017 30% of viewing time, as opposed to only 4% last year, would be via the web rather than linear.
The stream on managing media assets also included a presentation on monetising TV in a connected world, given by Giles Cottle, strategy director, Freesat. Cottle quoted research that showed FTA viewers in the UK are huge catch-up consumers. In addition, more watch online VOD than do pay-TV subscribers, through devices such as connected TVs and Xboxes.
Bearing this in mind, Freesat has decided to add a pay-as-you-go (TVOD) element to its offer in the near future. When questioned as to what this would consist of, Cottle said the platform was only interested in ‘big brands’ and it would be well-known, mainstream content.
When it comes to big brands, they don’t come much bigger than YouTube, and Francisco Varela, the company’s global director of platform partnerships, provided some interesting insights into its strategy and plans for the future.
Varela set the scene by saying that only 2 billion of the world’s 7 billion population is online and there is still a digital divide, especially between developed and emerging markets. However, “if you give people information they’ll change the world.”
He added that YouTube is currently the second most visited site in the world after Google and sees over 72 hours of video uploaded each minute. More generally speaking, over 86% of internet data will be video based by 2015.
Varela said that YouTube’s mantra is to offer its 800 million users worldwide a “fully featured updatable and monetisable experience.”
Although he was of the view that the “mobile revolution is still in its infancy”, YouTube is already widely accessed on mobile devices. Indeed, of the one billion plus playbacks a day, over 25% are through such devices, while in developed markets like South Korea the figure stands at over 50%.
YouTube sees much of its future growth taking place in such emerging markets as India, Brazil and Indonesia. It continues to invest heavily in content – $500 million in the last two years alone – and is firmly committed to be on all connected TVs, over 500 million of which will have been shipped by 2015.
Given Liberty Global’s dominant position in the European cable industry, especially following is recent major acquisitions in Germany and the UK, it was interesting to hear about the company’s future plans from Mourad Veeneman, its VP Technology.
Much of what Veeneman said either restated or expanded on what Mike Fries had discussed two weeks earlier at Cable Congress. There, he expressed interest in entering the mobile space – Veeneman added that Liberty would soon become a MVNO – and that the company would start moving its platform to the cloud as soon as possible.
However, Veeneman’s main message was that IP is the key to multiplatform user engagement.
When it comes to monetisation, few delegates are likely to have expected China to provide inspiration. Yet this is precisely what happened, with Ted Hsiung, CMO, Huawei, revealing that 15% of China Telecom’s captured TV revenues now come from apps.
Apps have been used to great effect by IPTV platforms in China and other countries could follow its lead.