FredericMartin - TV&NewMedia

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Live from Amsterdam: IBC fair - "the World of Content"

I´ve spent three days so far in Amsterdam (another three to go), looking at the latest trends in the world of content creation. All major companies involved in content production, edition and delivery attend the fair (with the exception of Apple; they have some meetings around the city and a strong presence through the i-Phone which is everywhere). Key-subjects include high definition, new media, 3D, tapeless production workflows, digital asset management and digital signage (i.e. digital public points of information & advertising). Lots of conferences on the future of broadcasting and media enrich the fair; I´ve attended a couple of interesting ones on mobile TV, IPTV and social media. What caught my eyes so far?

Our Latest Flash News - Summary 07/23

> Mobistar adds Eurosport & Eurosport2 to its mobile TV offer. With 30 channels, Mobistar is Nr1 in Belgium. about 6 hours ago

> BBC Worldwide made an agreement with IPTV platform Babelgum: wide range of content to be provided as clips. 06:39 AM July 16, 2008

> Orange expands mobile TV offering with extra channels including Setanta Sports and Channel Five 12:34 PM July 15, 2008

> Orange to launch a global campaign starting july 4th in the uk before rolling out in EMEA so as to position brand leadership in digital ... ... 06:40 AM July 02, 2008

> the BBC will send a staff of 437 to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The BBC's programming will feature 2,750 hours of coverage 05:57 AM July 02, 2008

> Sony to distribute blockbuster 'Hancock' directly to TV sets via Internet before DVD release. For Bravia owners with a web connection. 05:22 AM July 02, 2008

> Belgacom reaches almost 350,000 TV customers 07:20 AM July 01, 2008

> French M6 negotiating with ISPs Free and Neuf to offer its catch-up TV service, M6 Replay, on their ADSL TV services, reports Le Figaro 07:19 AM July 01, 2008

> Telefonica starts global mobile advertising alliance to provide a single point of contact for agencies and advertisers. 06:43 AM June 30, 2008

> Google releasing Media Server to allow streaming from the PC to the TV over a home network to any UPnP compatible or DLNA device such as PS3 06:25 AM June 30, 2008

> BBC will compete against Apple TV by launching soon a set-top box version of their successful i-Player 06:21 AM June 30, 2008

> BBC tests DVB-T2 transmissions to prepare for HD launch on Freeview 05:46 AM June 30, 2008

> Arte launches German language HD channel via Astra on July 1st 05:44 AM June 30, 2008

> ProSiebenSat.1 and Premiere have acquired the rights for Champions League and UEFA matches for 2009-12 10:26 AM June 26, 2008 from web

> France2 starting HD this week on friday. Tour de France and Beijing Olympics will be covered in HD. 10:17 AM June 26, 2008 from web

> KPN close to deal for first division football rights 06:13 AM June 20, 2008

> ESPN Star Sports offers $40m for 2010 FIFA World Cup rights 06:12 AM June 20, 2008

> German IPTV market grows to 240,000 users according to new study 06:12 AM June 20, 2008

> Canal+ VOD now available on Sony's Playstation Portable 06:09 AM June 20, 2008

Samsung new DMB phones

This is the new Samsung P2 line. These mobile phones integrate a DMB receiver for the Korean market. I guess Samsung will develop such products for the US and Europe. The thin and smooth design is combined with the best of their technology. The OLED screen is touch sensitive. Those models are available in 4GB, 8GB or16GB for respectively 259000Won (~161Euros), 309000Won (~192Euros) and 389000Won (~242Euros). Such sexy products will surely help further develop the mobile TV market.

Mobile TV consumer research in UK, may 2008

An independent research organization called Market Tools led an interesting research on mobile TV in UK last may. 650 mobile phone consumers aged 18-34 were questioned on their habits and expectations. The results are shown here. Key-learnings include followings:
- Most people (44%) don't know if their provider offer video and mobile TV services; this is a clear hurdle for the uptake of mobile TV.
- Most people (33%) fear the cost for video and mobile TV services might be too high; this is another key-hurdle in adopting those services.
- A high proportion (46%) of video and mobile TV consumers watch content ... at home.
- Another high proportion of consumers have a preference for "snacking" on content while on the move or in transit.
- Nevertheless, a third watch videos and mobile TVcontent almost on a daily basis and also a third have already watched a programme during 30 minutes and more. And even 10% have already watched a movie or full length television. This is good news for the content industry.
- Further, 41% of users would increase the amount of time watching video content if they were able to pause and resume; this shows the PVR function is a key-feature on mobile phones too.
- Regarding the business model, 65% of respondents confirmed they would accept watching short targeted advert if this leads to discounted access. Advertising is the preferred paying model (39%), ahead of pay per use (22%) and monthly subscription.

As a conclusion, those results show that the success of mobile video and TV lie in the hands of marketers while consumers are interested in consuming quite a lot of content on their mobile. Mobile video and TV Marketers must enhance their service awareness, adjust the payment model towards more advertising and make consumers feel comfortable with their bill. Furthermore, the content must be repurposed in size and formats to match the various consumption modes.

Another consumer survey for mobile  TV has been recently conducted by Telegent in the United States. Here are the results.

European Conference on High Definition

Attending HD Masters 2008 conference in London organized by TVB Europe. Keynotes speakers present the expansion of High Definition in Europe, future outlooks and challenges for the stakeholers across the value chain. The old continent is lagging behind the US in terms of HD deployment but the train is speeding up, consumers quickly adopting HD sets and broadcasters accelerating the HD production and launching dedicated channels. The HD landscape is for the time being very small and uneven across Europe, France and the UK taking the lead across the whole value chain while Germany is dramatically lagging behind on the content side. Among the 165 milion European households, 38 millions can access a HD signal while 30 millions have HD-ready TV sets. In total, only 1.2 million European households are actually HD enabled. From the content side, 14 HD channels are being launched this year thus leading to a total of 100 HD channels next year ( versus 130 in the US). Big events including the European Football Cup and the Olympics are now fully covered in HD. Highly sophisticated OB Vans are running around to secure those sport events in HD quality. Out of 474 OB vans in the EMEA region, 182 are equipped to broadcast in HD quality. Unlike, studios are currently poorly equipped to broadcast in HD. Going HD means a massive change of the production workflow thus meaning dramatic investments. Turning the tape workflow into a file based workflow is the first priority for many studios before going HD as a second step. Across Europe, only 22 studios so far(1%) have an HD workflow.

UK TV Landscape to be Transformed by 38 million Internet Users

An interesting article on the fast growing online video landscape in the UK.

"...In 2008, more than 60% of UK homes will have broadband connections, and that figure will rise to 74% in 2012. As a result, online video viewing is also rising and an increasing amount of broadcast and cable television content is appearing online. Add that behavior to the growing Internet population, which will top 38 million in the UK in 2008, and a transformation of the TV landscape is the result..."

Television Broadcast Is Moving To A Multiplicity Model

An interesting article on the future of TV broadcasting written by Idris Mootee, a business and innovation strategist.

UAE: mobile TV services in 2009

via AmeInfo: "The UAE is hoping to make broadcast mobile TV services available in the country in 2009, reported Gulf News. The UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority plans to issue licences for the service by the end of this year, which will be valid for 10 years. The technologies available for broadcast mobile TV services are DVB-H, developed by Nokia, and Qualcomm's MediaFlo".

Asia Pacific will have 250m Digital TV Homes by 2013

Informa just released some new research showing the explosion of digital TV in Asia through the rapid development of China and India.