An overview of the global pay-TV market has found the provision of Multiscreen services to be standard.
The first report from the Pay-TV Innovation Forum, researched by consultancy MTM and funded by security company Kudelski, found 92% of operators offer a Multiscreen service to their subscribers. 49 per cent provide access to third party platforms and 30 per cent offer stand alone, unbundled pay-TV services.
However, just 10% offer 4k video and voice control is only available from 3% of operators.
The research also shows that expansion into adjacent business areas is still early stage, with only 12% currently offering home security services and 9% providing home automation services.
“It’s fascinating to see that Forum participants mentioned a strong focus on making their pay-TV product offerings better in the years to come, mainly in terms of content, packaging and OTT distribution, while expressing less appetite for expanding into adjacent opportunities,” said Simon Trudelle, senior product marketing director for NAGRA. “This also means that as competition intensifies, pay-TV service providers will have to accelerate innovation and time-to-market to create more value for their customers, with partnerships with vendors and multi-company collaborations set to become more important. With this in mind, it’s imperative that service providers continue to invest in next generation solutions that improve the user experience across all screens if they are to differentiate themselves, attract new subscribers and keep delivering revenue growth and profitability.”
The report examines product and service portfolios of 93 pay-TV service providers across the 18 largest pay-TV markets in Europe. It shows that the largest service providers, either pan-regional pay-TV providers or European telcos, are the most advanced.
“Undertaking this research as part of the Pay-TV Innovation Forum has highlighted significant developments within the European pay-TV sector, particularly in terms of how well telcos–relatively new players in pay-TV–have done in building innovative and well-diversified service portfolios,” said Jon Watts, Managing Partner at MTM. “As service providers look to introduce new services, it’s clear that innovation based on IP, cloud and data science technologies will play a key role in strengthening TV and video products across all screens.”
The Pay-TV Innovation Forum research entitled “Mapping the European Pay-TV Innovation Landscape” is the first in a series of white papers reporting on the state of the global pay-TV industry. Additional editions will focus on innovation within Asia Pacific, Latin America and North America and will be published over the next few months, with a final report to be presented at the 2016 IBC Conference.
