First I feel it necessary to define what I mean by Video on Demand (VoD). I mean in the broadest sense of on demand. Walking into your local DVD rental emporium is VoD. The time lag between making a decision and the fulfilment is a function of the operation and technology. So what isn’t VoD? Buying a DVD or taking a DVD out of your personal library isn’t VoD – something in-between. At the opposite end from VoD is broadcast where programmes are scheduled to play at a time determined by station that also decides what content to aggregate into its schedule.
So in my definition of VoD I would include the walled gardens of IPTV services like BT Vision even though they exhibit the broadcasters’ trait of decided what content to aggregate onto their platform. Internet TV services such as Joost and the BBC’s iPlayer are VoD as is a download or stream.
VoD is still an emerging service with early adopters still dominating the consumer base. This is unlikely to change for sometime for a number of factors.
These are 1. Uncertainty 2.Complexity and 3. Confusion caused by: -
• Proprietary technologies and applications that require multiple installations on your PC.
• Multiple set top boxes, sling box, IPTV box, Multimedia centres
• HDTV on the horizon which technology or device will give the best experience or will new boxes and technology require me to ditch my new but obsolete investment.
And others.
Even if these are all resolved and a “Blue-ray” standard emerges there is still a big benefit that broadcast has over VoD though few seem to recognise it or be developing it as a strategy. It is “Discovery”.
What is discovery? Well, most viewers know where there favourite TV Soaps are they switch channels to watch their Soap. How do they now? Well they look in the news paper, TV guide or know it’s always on. What about a new Soap? Here the marketing is done by the broadcast TV channel (or Network) Posters, newspaper but also trailers that are placed around other programmes.
Other channels don’t need to do this as much as their brand value broadly describes the content they aggregate for the viewers’ entertainment. Examples of my interpretations of these TV Brand are; Disney is a family channel, I could place an 8-year old in front of it in complete confidence that they would not hear a profanity. MTV once a music channel is now a 16 – 30 year old life style content. National Geographical, The Discovery Channel etc all have consumer understood values that set the viewing expectations.
BT Vision on the other hand and Joost may promote themselves and the extent of their content libraries but I have yet to see much more. This is because, to date, their content has previously been shown on TV or in Cinemas and therefore someone else has done the marketing and created the awareness. Users of these services are primarily looking for something they missed or want to see again. They may see something that they watch on speculation, but not the primary motivation.
Will VoD services see the day when there is content made primarily for VoD and secondly for broadcast? Will VoD commission exclusive content? Could they bid for 24, Lost or Heroes, so these programmes appeared exclusively or initially on their platforms? To succeed they will have to spend more and get smarter at marketing and enabling their target market to discover the delights, benefits and freedom of VoD.
Friday 25 July 2008
Tuesday 22 July 2008
Young eyeballs v Old money
The audiences for sport are gradually getting older. That is to say that there are fewer young people interested in passively watch sport on TV or at the ground. Why is this happening? Well cost is a factor, ticket prices increase and subscription costs for pay TV are barriers to access. Alternatives, video games, internet, DVD etc alternative entertainment options.
Yet audience levels remain high especially at the grounds of the top teams/events. Therefore the accountants are happy as they collect the aging audiences’ money. Yet as they take the baby boomer’s money in the short term they are building up a long term trend that could have a profound affect on sport. With less spectators, one outcome might be a concentration on the larger teams and events (a trend that some might see already) at the expense of the lesser teams etc.
I was at a conference recently and one speaker said that for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing it will be the pinnacle as far as global TV audiences, with forecast audiences for every subsequent event progressively falling. TV has the same aging audience problem.
In the case of commercial TV there is a dichotomy, on the one hand the advertisers want to get to the 16-35 age group while it is the 55+ age group that watches most TV.
So what is TV doing about it? I’m not sure it is doing anything. They seem to be doing “more or the same”, at best. At worst budget cuts from falling revenue impact production quality and the fear of failure makes the industry risk adverse. Then to top it the financial institutes and investors that hold the leash encourage repeating what worked last time again… and again… and again until ultimately it fails.
Advertisers are attracted to the 16 – 35 year olds, because the perceived wisdom is, if they capture the consumers early, they are likely to retain them. Example, if a collage or university student joins a bank now, even if they have no money now, the chances are will still be with them when they have money at 40+. The same applies to a whole range of white, brown good and MFCG’s in terms of brand loyalty. Whether this is really brand loyalty or apathy and whether it will hold true as the children of the digital age grow older is a different discussion.
Yet the 16-35 have less disposable income, lower paid jobs, highly active social lives, mortgages, young families etc all drain their disposable income. The other day I heard the term NEET’s (Not in Employment, Education or Training – or something like that) a 16 to 25 age that may have a part time job but effectively live off of their parents income, for at least their housing and food needs.
The 40 or 45+ have money and can, and do, pay for simplicity comfort, ease and quality. Part of this desire maybe why they tolerate the NEET’s (its easy). Despite this the ad industry (and their clients, the brands) and consequently the pure ad funded TV channels, are obsessed with this “sub prime” market. A market that prefers speed, interaction, change/new and cheap. A market that has and exercises choice with self in mind. A market with limited or no money.
And the point is, like sport, broadcast TV needs to look at the long term and ensure that it creates a habit and a loyalty that will hold viewers for a life time, not just until the end of the series/season.
Yet audience levels remain high especially at the grounds of the top teams/events. Therefore the accountants are happy as they collect the aging audiences’ money. Yet as they take the baby boomer’s money in the short term they are building up a long term trend that could have a profound affect on sport. With less spectators, one outcome might be a concentration on the larger teams and events (a trend that some might see already) at the expense of the lesser teams etc.
I was at a conference recently and one speaker said that for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing it will be the pinnacle as far as global TV audiences, with forecast audiences for every subsequent event progressively falling. TV has the same aging audience problem.
In the case of commercial TV there is a dichotomy, on the one hand the advertisers want to get to the 16-35 age group while it is the 55+ age group that watches most TV.
So what is TV doing about it? I’m not sure it is doing anything. They seem to be doing “more or the same”, at best. At worst budget cuts from falling revenue impact production quality and the fear of failure makes the industry risk adverse. Then to top it the financial institutes and investors that hold the leash encourage repeating what worked last time again… and again… and again until ultimately it fails.
Advertisers are attracted to the 16 – 35 year olds, because the perceived wisdom is, if they capture the consumers early, they are likely to retain them. Example, if a collage or university student joins a bank now, even if they have no money now, the chances are will still be with them when they have money at 40+. The same applies to a whole range of white, brown good and MFCG’s in terms of brand loyalty. Whether this is really brand loyalty or apathy and whether it will hold true as the children of the digital age grow older is a different discussion.
Yet the 16-35 have less disposable income, lower paid jobs, highly active social lives, mortgages, young families etc all drain their disposable income. The other day I heard the term NEET’s (Not in Employment, Education or Training – or something like that) a 16 to 25 age that may have a part time job but effectively live off of their parents income, for at least their housing and food needs.
The 40 or 45+ have money and can, and do, pay for simplicity comfort, ease and quality. Part of this desire maybe why they tolerate the NEET’s (its easy). Despite this the ad industry (and their clients, the brands) and consequently the pure ad funded TV channels, are obsessed with this “sub prime” market. A market that prefers speed, interaction, change/new and cheap. A market that has and exercises choice with self in mind. A market with limited or no money.
And the point is, like sport, broadcast TV needs to look at the long term and ensure that it creates a habit and a loyalty that will hold viewers for a life time, not just until the end of the series/season.
Tuesday 15 July 2008
Mobile TV - update
I’ve just read an article in Broadcast Engineering (July 08) title “Get mobile”. The article, better written than my meanderings, is not out of tilt with what I said in an earlier blog. However, one thing it highlights is simultaneously broadcasting on DVB-H (the mobile standard) as DVB-T (the television standard). This seems a waste of radio frequency spectrum.
If you can buy a simple USB dongle to put digital television on your PC why not use the same technology to put it on your mobile.
The article also highlights the different screen formats on different mobile devices that each would need their own format. Although ignored in the article the implication is that there would potentially be multiple DVB-H versions to cover each format. Again, a waste of valuable spectrum.
Why not use DVB-T on mobile devices and make the device reformat for the screen it has. This would be an efficient use of the spectrum – will make obsolete the older mobile devices, so playing to the mobile phone manufacturers’ obsolescence strategy.
Some may say that this loses the opportunity to personalise the content and adverts. However, there is no reason why interactivity and personalised ads and content could not be delivered via cellular network. This network could down load the ad of content to the mobile device and insert it into the broadcast ad break at the appropriate time.
DVB-T is being deployed across Europe and will probably have a better coverage than any DVB-H network will for some time.
The only problem is if you are on a train (for example) and watching a programme and moved out of one transmitter area into another how would you maintain the TV experience during the transmission. Cellular network already does this if you are on a call. A simple reference table that said you are in this cell’s coverage and the best DVB-T signal is “A transmitter” as you moved into the next cell site this could trigger the DVB-T tuner to move to the “B transmitter” if that gave a better signal.
If you can buy a simple USB dongle to put digital television on your PC why not use the same technology to put it on your mobile.
The article also highlights the different screen formats on different mobile devices that each would need their own format. Although ignored in the article the implication is that there would potentially be multiple DVB-H versions to cover each format. Again, a waste of valuable spectrum.
Why not use DVB-T on mobile devices and make the device reformat for the screen it has. This would be an efficient use of the spectrum – will make obsolete the older mobile devices, so playing to the mobile phone manufacturers’ obsolescence strategy.
Some may say that this loses the opportunity to personalise the content and adverts. However, there is no reason why interactivity and personalised ads and content could not be delivered via cellular network. This network could down load the ad of content to the mobile device and insert it into the broadcast ad break at the appropriate time.
DVB-T is being deployed across Europe and will probably have a better coverage than any DVB-H network will for some time.
The only problem is if you are on a train (for example) and watching a programme and moved out of one transmitter area into another how would you maintain the TV experience during the transmission. Cellular network already does this if you are on a call. A simple reference table that said you are in this cell’s coverage and the best DVB-T signal is “A transmitter” as you moved into the next cell site this could trigger the DVB-T tuner to move to the “B transmitter” if that gave a better signal.
Sunday 13 July 2008
Kasim Sulton
There's a small venue in Denmark street London called the “12 Bar Club”
It’s a bit shabby, so no black tie and dinner jacket, but this ads to the ambiance. In here for a modest entry fee of £6 upwards (depends who is on, day of week and other unspecified variables) you’ll usually get to see three or four musical acts.
To give you a sense of size, if you stand at the back down stairs you can’t see the top half of the act. Up stairs at the back and you can’t see the bottom half of the act. But I digress…
If you like music in a broad sense at least one of the acts will meet your needs and most of the time all the performances will have some merit. On Tuesday 8 July two mates and I went there expecting to see the usual trilogy of acts while we downed several beers.
A pleasant surprise when Kasim Sulton came on as the second act. Why wasn’t he headlining? A good question – he had been in Nottingham touring with Meat Loaf and had driven down in a hire care to do his first solo London gig. He had to drive back to Nottingham that night.
So, to a massive crowd (about 25 people) Kasim gave this excellent personal concert. I’ve had some good nights out at the 12 Bar Club and this is one of the best.
Veiw video here
Thank you Kasim.
It’s a bit shabby, so no black tie and dinner jacket, but this ads to the ambiance. In here for a modest entry fee of £6 upwards (depends who is on, day of week and other unspecified variables) you’ll usually get to see three or four musical acts.
To give you a sense of size, if you stand at the back down stairs you can’t see the top half of the act. Up stairs at the back and you can’t see the bottom half of the act. But I digress…
If you like music in a broad sense at least one of the acts will meet your needs and most of the time all the performances will have some merit. On Tuesday 8 July two mates and I went there expecting to see the usual trilogy of acts while we downed several beers.
A pleasant surprise when Kasim Sulton came on as the second act. Why wasn’t he headlining? A good question – he had been in Nottingham touring with Meat Loaf and had driven down in a hire care to do his first solo London gig. He had to drive back to Nottingham that night.
So, to a massive crowd (about 25 people) Kasim gave this excellent personal concert. I’ve had some good nights out at the 12 Bar Club and this is one of the best.
Veiw video here
Thank you Kasim.
Video to the mobile phone
Video to the mobile phone has been tried for a number of years now.
That is broadcast TV, download, streaming or on demand with mixed technical success and largely commercial failure for one reason or another.
Products and services have to fulfil a customer's need (at a price point) to be successful. So is there a need and at what price?
Mobile phone manufacturers have a strategy that is forcing the issue and creating hype around the technology but who is going to make money?
First the mobile phone manufacturers strategy. Make a mobile phone. Then make smaller phones, make it in different shapes and colours, then add polyphonic ring tones to the next generation, two band, tri-band, mp3 players, cameras, more storage, more computing power etc. With each generation, a new function gradually makes the older phones less desirable and obsolete, causing the consumer to up grade.
Network operators have fed this beast by using new phones to tempt people from other operators and upgrades to keep them. Who wins out of this Nokia Samsung, Erickson and the others keep their factories in operation so they are. Network operators? Probably not as customers shuffel around the networks they probably tend to maintain a status quo. The consumers? Maybe if they value the phone and its functions above the higher services charges the operators have to maintain, in order to pay the manufacturers.
Anyway, adding features to a phone was totally in the hands of the manufacturer. For example adding a camera to a phone didn’t require the network operator or anyone else to change their operation or service. Neither did adding an MP3 player. That is not to say that business did not see the opportunity to sell downloads and data services around these. However, put video on a phone and you are faced with some significant technical, operational and commercial differences.
First the bandwidth required is much higher if you are going to do anything more that preloaded video. Secondly you are going to need content that people want to watch.
As well as being obvious they don’t sound too hard and they are not, except in one area and that is the commercial area of who pays, how much and to whom?
Obviously the mobile video network needs to be paid for. That is technically possible as the many trials have proven. Payment comes from usage – the more you use the more you pay – but to complicate this simple model put yourself in the position of a TV broadcaster who wants to put there channel on mobile. They could pay through revenues they get for advertising around their programmes. Well that would be OK if the current research didn’t show that 2 to 3 minutes is about as long a programme people want to watch on their phone. Put adverts in front or interrupt the video with an ad and the consumer doesn’t watch. Bigger screens like those on the PSP and iPhone will push up the viewing time (as long as the batteries last)
Make the consumer pay-per-view or subscription. If Wimbledon tennis on and you’re a fan then you might, for a fortnight, but the rest of the time? Event specific subscriptions may have a place, but will you be able to see the ball on such a small screen?
So as we look at who pays for the network and why, we have crossed over into the second problem of content. BSkyB has paid for the Premier football rights, in order to attract customers to their satellite services. They are not going to be pleased if you can see every goal on your mobile for a few pennies that cover the network costs. They or the Premier league will also want their value recognised and rewarded. And its not just a case of taking Sky’s pictures and putting it on mobile. The picture needs to be zoomed in so you can see the action – possibly graphics need to be created so the off-ball actions can be seen – and therefore the costs just went up for Sky.
User generated content where your friends in night club send 20 seconds of video to your mobile phone to show you what a great time they are having is a low cost from of content that has a place in the market. Its very network heavy in terms of bandwidth as the point to point transmission can be almost the same as a point to multipoint of a broadcast.
The result is the mobile phone manufacturers can’t get video to the mobile off the ground globally as they might like - there are some parts of the world that have started. Some manufacturers have diversified to resolve all the issues with launching a mobile TV service to the extent that Nokia can supply all the technology for encoding, managing and transmitting mobile video content. They just can’t get the content that people want and they haven’t resolved the commercial model for how anyone (other then them) make money at it.
The next step for manufacturers, like Nokia, maybe to launch their own mobile video service, buy content rights and put their money where their mouth is.
That is broadcast TV, download, streaming or on demand with mixed technical success and largely commercial failure for one reason or another.
Products and services have to fulfil a customer's need (at a price point) to be successful. So is there a need and at what price?
Mobile phone manufacturers have a strategy that is forcing the issue and creating hype around the technology but who is going to make money?
First the mobile phone manufacturers strategy. Make a mobile phone. Then make smaller phones, make it in different shapes and colours, then add polyphonic ring tones to the next generation, two band, tri-band, mp3 players, cameras, more storage, more computing power etc. With each generation, a new function gradually makes the older phones less desirable and obsolete, causing the consumer to up grade.
Network operators have fed this beast by using new phones to tempt people from other operators and upgrades to keep them. Who wins out of this Nokia Samsung, Erickson and the others keep their factories in operation so they are. Network operators? Probably not as customers shuffel around the networks they probably tend to maintain a status quo. The consumers? Maybe if they value the phone and its functions above the higher services charges the operators have to maintain, in order to pay the manufacturers.
Anyway, adding features to a phone was totally in the hands of the manufacturer. For example adding a camera to a phone didn’t require the network operator or anyone else to change their operation or service. Neither did adding an MP3 player. That is not to say that business did not see the opportunity to sell downloads and data services around these. However, put video on a phone and you are faced with some significant technical, operational and commercial differences.
First the bandwidth required is much higher if you are going to do anything more that preloaded video. Secondly you are going to need content that people want to watch.
As well as being obvious they don’t sound too hard and they are not, except in one area and that is the commercial area of who pays, how much and to whom?
Obviously the mobile video network needs to be paid for. That is technically possible as the many trials have proven. Payment comes from usage – the more you use the more you pay – but to complicate this simple model put yourself in the position of a TV broadcaster who wants to put there channel on mobile. They could pay through revenues they get for advertising around their programmes. Well that would be OK if the current research didn’t show that 2 to 3 minutes is about as long a programme people want to watch on their phone. Put adverts in front or interrupt the video with an ad and the consumer doesn’t watch. Bigger screens like those on the PSP and iPhone will push up the viewing time (as long as the batteries last)
Make the consumer pay-per-view or subscription. If Wimbledon tennis on and you’re a fan then you might, for a fortnight, but the rest of the time? Event specific subscriptions may have a place, but will you be able to see the ball on such a small screen?
So as we look at who pays for the network and why, we have crossed over into the second problem of content. BSkyB has paid for the Premier football rights, in order to attract customers to their satellite services. They are not going to be pleased if you can see every goal on your mobile for a few pennies that cover the network costs. They or the Premier league will also want their value recognised and rewarded. And its not just a case of taking Sky’s pictures and putting it on mobile. The picture needs to be zoomed in so you can see the action – possibly graphics need to be created so the off-ball actions can be seen – and therefore the costs just went up for Sky.
User generated content where your friends in night club send 20 seconds of video to your mobile phone to show you what a great time they are having is a low cost from of content that has a place in the market. Its very network heavy in terms of bandwidth as the point to point transmission can be almost the same as a point to multipoint of a broadcast.
The result is the mobile phone manufacturers can’t get video to the mobile off the ground globally as they might like - there are some parts of the world that have started. Some manufacturers have diversified to resolve all the issues with launching a mobile TV service to the extent that Nokia can supply all the technology for encoding, managing and transmitting mobile video content. They just can’t get the content that people want and they haven’t resolved the commercial model for how anyone (other then them) make money at it.
The next step for manufacturers, like Nokia, maybe to launch their own mobile video service, buy content rights and put their money where their mouth is.
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