The Asia-Pacific region, which owns 57 percent of global pay-TV subscriptions, remains the largest pay-TV market in the world.

“The growing numbers of digital TV households and high-speed broadband households in the Asia-Pacific region enable operators to deliver advanced pay-TV packages such as high definition and IPTV that offer more options to customers,” said ABI Research associate Khin Sandi Lynn.

Worldwide pay-TV subscriptions continue to increase, and the total number of subscriptions is forecast to exceed 745 million in 2011, Broadcast Newsroom reports.

According to the most recent market data from ABI Research, there were more than 704 million pay-TV subscribers globally at the end of 2010, up by more than 56 million subscribers from 2009.

In terms of subscriptions, China and India already stand in the first and second positions respectively in the worldwide pay-TV market. However the low level of pay-TV penetration in these countries creates a great opportunity to expand the subscriber base.

This is not only true of China and India: Thailand’s cable and satellite TV market is likely to boom as well in coming years, due to recent government plans for regulatory changes in the broadcasting industry.

The deployment of digital television is seen as a significant development in some countries. In 2010, more than half of all pay-TV subscribers are digital TV subscribers. Launches of high-definition (HDTV) television services via a variety of pay-TV platforms are being accelerated by operators around the world. In 2011, total HDTV subscriptions are expected to reach 225 million.

Source: http://www.abu.org.my/abu/index.cfm/elementid/67409/-Asia-Pacific-region-the-largest-pay-TV-market-

“Barely restrained incredulity” is not often a feature of judicial decisions, but today’s ruling against Internet rebroadcaster ivi features a judge who isn’t buying anything the company’s lawyers are selling.

ivi’s business model consists of grabbing over-the-air TV signals from stations broadcasting in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago, then blasting those signals through the Internet to reach ivi’s paying customers anywhere in the country. And did we mention that ivi had no permission from broadcasters for any of this?

We’re a cable company!

It might sound blatantly illegal, but ivi relied on an old compulsory license that Congress had created decades ago to help the cable industry get started. It insisted it was acting legally. (Indeed, the company even attacked rival FilmOn, telling Ars that it “welcomes the opportunity to distinguish itself from a ‘bad actor’ who was not operating in good faith by blatantly violating copyright law.”)

ivi was promptly sued in late 2010 by a huge list of broadcasters, and the judge in the case today came down on their side; ivi is now under a preliminary injunction and must stop the retransmissions.

“To place defendants’ argument in a real world context,” wrote Judge Naomi Buchwald, “they assert that for the payment of approximately $100 a year to the Copyright Office (the payment for a Section 111 compulsory license) and without compliance with the strictures of the Communications Act or plaintiffs’ consent, that they are entitled to use and profit from the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.”

But the judge ruled that ivi was not a cable operator and that “absent defendants’ skewed interpretation of the statutory text and administrative record, there is absolutely no basis for holding otherwise.”

“ivi’s architecture bears no resemblance to the cable systems of the 1970s,” she continued. “Its service retransmits broadcast signals nationwide, rather than to specific local areas. Finally, unlike cable systems of the 1970s, ivi refuses to comply with the rules and regulations of the FCC… An opposite finding in this case would surely ‘threaten considerable mischief.'”

Broadcasters objected to having content retransmitted without consent, they didn’t like ivi’s practice of making local stations (and their ads) available nationally, and they worried that ivi’s transmissions might be viewable outside the US.

ivi insists that it is no different from AT&T’s IPTV service U-Verse and that it encrypts the broadcasts and makes them available only to paying, US-based customers.

According to the judge, none of that matters, since ivi has been transmitting signals without consent and does not qualify for the Section 111 statutory license.

Public Knowledge attorney John Bergmayer lamented the ruling. “We are disappointed that Judge Buchwald chose to shut down ivi at all, much less so early in the legal process. Her decision showed clearly the ambiguities in current law and regulation which online video providers like ivi face. If competition to traditional cable service is to develop in the online distribution sector, then the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Copyright Office are going to have to move quickly to update their rules to conform to the realities of new technology and consumer choice.”

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/internet-streams-of-over-the-air-broadcasts-illegal-says-judge.ars

Statistics are said to reveal the suggestive and hide the vital. A study has found that nearly a third of the subscribers of the ‘fast growing’ six-player DTH industry are inactive. 

According to industry estimates, the inactive users will contribute around Rs 1,350 crore to the over Rs 5,300 crore loss that the DTH players will make in the current fiscal.

“The inactive DTH subscribers, called the churn in the DTH industry, are a major cause of worry for the operators due to mounting financial losses even as the gross numbers continue to shoot up,” says MPA executive director Vivek Couto.

The inactive subscribers aggregating nearly 10 million have not renewed their subscription after the end of the promotional offer period. Most DTH operators provide a package of television channels free for 3-6 months while selling the set-top box.

Says Dish TV MD Jawahar Goel: “Churn is there but it is not that big. In the US and the UK markets too the average churn or inactive subscribers are 12-15% of the gross subscribers. As the DTH numbers grow to become more than half of the 90 million cable homes, churn will minimise.”

What makes it worse for the industry is that the DTH companies have invested over Rs 15,000 crore and provide set-top boxes at heavily subsidised prices.

“Managing the churn is a big challenge for the industry as customer lost is equal to investments lost. However, it is not a worry for us. But it is likely to increase because of availability of subsidised boxes in a non-contracted environment,” says Tata Sky CEO Harit Nagpal.

Overall, 68% customers are still subscribing to DTH services.

Old-hands Dish TV and Tata Sky lead the pack with an average 80% active subscribers, while the new entrants Videocon D2H, Reliance Big TV, Airtel Digital TV and Sun Direct TV together have only around 62% active subscribers.

Among the new players, Bharti Airtel enjoys the highest active subscriber base of 73%, the third-highest overall, reveals an analysis of data complied by Media Partners Asia (MPA), a Hong Kong-based international media research agency along with updates from the DTH industry.

So far, the DTH subscriber numbers are not provided by the sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) as private DTH operators do not share their numbers with it.

Dish TV numbers are in the public domain as it is the only listed DTH firm among the six.

The other five — Tata Sky (a Star-Tata joint venture), Sun Direct (Sun TV), Digital TV (Bharti Airtel), Big TV (Reliance ADAG) and D2H (Videocon) – are privately held companies.

As a result of nearly 10 million inactive subscribers, some of the private DTH operators have stopped sharing their subscriber numbers, sources revealed. DTH operators say customers switch to cable TV as they can provide only the permitted channels whereas a numbers of illegal or unauthorised channels are available on the cable platform. Goel expects the churn to subside during the World Cup cricket as more people opt for a DTH connection. In order to encourage the inactive subscribers to renew their packages, the DTH players have been launching new schemes and products. Tata Sky recently introduced Tata Sky HD-plus services at Rs 3,999 where the box will record 600 hours of content and also receive HD signals.

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/10mn-inactive-subscribers-hit-dth-cos/749673/0

A new report from PwC has found that the price of content is the key driver for piracy despite the amount of ways to access content.The survey unearthed a fundamental belief that buying hard copies or paying to download content is either unnecessary or has become too expensive. More than half of consumers who said they pirate don’t feel the need to own a physical copy such as a DVD. Furthermore, even though many said costs to buy or download content—especially movies—is high, most said they do not pirate in an effort to detract from studio profits.

Interestingly, the growing number of ad-supported websites is contributing to increased piracy. Such sites may be causing confusion as to what is pirated content and what is legitimate, free content.

The vast majority (81%) of those admitting to pirating TV, movie, and video content such as UGC, mash-ups, and YouTube content said that they would likely continue to do so, even though two-thirds worried about potential legal actions or downloading a virus by doing so.

In its report, PwC warns that the advanced use of multiplatform solutions will be another driver of privacy with, in particular, mobile piracy poised to escalate as already consumers say they use mobile devices, such as smart phones, to access pirated content.

The analyst highlighted that potential business models that call for charging consumers a significant up-charge to access content sooner than traditional release windows allow may not appeal to these consumers, who strongly desire free content.

On a brighter note for content owners, there was a general acceptance of paying for content rather than piracy per se. Yet most say that they’d only be willing to pay a maximum of $3 for a movie and $1 for a television show. Furthermore, 83% of those willing to pay want the content within one month of the theatrical release window. Nearly three-quarters (76%) said they are somewhat willing to pay a nominal fee if the content can be accessed closer to its release date.

Read more: Price of content the biggest driver of piracy | News | Rapid TV News http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/2011021810444/price-of-content-the-biggest-driver-of-piracy.html#ixzz1EYiPw9FP

There will be 1 billion web-enabled, stationary consumer electronics devices in operation worldwide by 2015, predicts US research firm In-Stat, who calles these devices ‘smart TVs’.

“Smart TVs” and Blu-ray players (that support online apps) will constitute over 50% of all web-enabled CE device shipments worldwide in 2015,” said Keith Nissen, principal analyst, in a statement. “North America and Europe will remain the primary regional markets for web-enabled, stationary consumer electronics devices. Over the next five years, both the North American and European markets will exhibit a 23% CAGR and will account for nearly 70% of the global market.”

Recent research findings include: the popularity of over-the-top (OTT) video is creating interest in enhancing the IP video capabilities of cable, satellite, and IPTV set top boxes. This is creating a growing market for hybrid STBs.

The vast majority of Blu-ray disc players and recorders shipped will be both network-enabled and web-enabled devices. The Asia/Pacific region will favour mobile consumer electronics devices over stationary devices but will still show a 20% CAGR in web-enabled stationary devices over the forecast period.

There are many different TV application platforms. Yahoo! Widgets is the major TV app platform in the industry (at least according to In-Stat), though Philips, Sony, Samsung, and others have developed their own proprietary platforms. Look for Google TV’s App Store and the Apple TV Apps store to shake things up.

Source: http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2011/02/18/connected-tv-to-reaching-1-billion-by-2015/

Panelists Debate Over-the-Top Threat and Cable’s VOD Opportunity

By Todd Spangler — Multichannel News, 2/16/2011 7:51:33 AM

New York — Surging over-the-top video services could serve as an increasingly attractive opportunity for targeted, interactive advertising — and cause pay-TV providers to move faster on initiatives like dynamic ad insertion for video-on-demand.

That was one of the key points of debate on a panel at B&C/Multichannel News’ Advanced Advertising 3.0 event here Tuesday.

“Frankly, any discussion of advanced advertising has to absolutely consider” broadband-delivered video services, according to Tim Hanlon, CEO of Velociter, a unit of Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands focused on investments and strategic partnerships.

Internet-delivered video could spur traditional TV providers to adopt advanced advertising capabilities more quickly, according to Hanlon.

“Netflix, at 20 million subscribers, starts to look like a pretty broad, segmentable audience,” Hanlon said, advising advertisers and content owners to “be open to that possibility, rather than it being a dalliance or an afterthought.” Netflix does not currently sell advertising on its website or for its streaming video service.

However, Visible World president and CEO Seth Haberman challenged the premise that over-the-top services are a threat to traditional TV ads, citing lack of inventory and infrastructure in the online space. TV operators are “not worried about one-tenth of 1% of their [advertising] spend going to another platform,” he said.

The Weather Channel, for one, considers all the advertising potential across many different platforms, including Internet-connected TVs and tablets, vice president of ad sales Christopher Raleigh said. “The consumer is looking for our programming wherever it is,” he said, noting that the network must work to balance marketing messages with consumer expectations for a given platform.

Cable is poised to generate more ad dollars from VOD by targeting ads to on-demand viewers — if it can get to mass scale, said Cathy Hetzel, president of Rentrak’s Advanced Media and Information division.

“What we have the opportunity to do now is take those databases that have been used for targeting for many years… and bring a more exciting experience to television,” she said. “It’s another way to find the household with the dog, which has probably been getting some catalog about pets for years.”

Even without dynamic ad insertion, Hetzel added, VOD is a very effective ad platform given that those viewers make a deliberate decision about what to watch. According to Rentrak, the industry in 2010 served 8 billion VOD sessions totaling 350 million hours.

Hanlon agreed that nonlinear viewing has huge potential for ad targeting and expressed surprise that VOD services generally still lack that capability.

“I’m incredulous that we haven’t come to a realization of that on a scale basis,” he said.

Canoe Ventures, the advertising technology and services company formed by the six biggest U.S. cable operators, plans to test dynamic VOD ad insertion on a nationwide basis this year.

As for addressable ads, Haberman — whose company provides systems for delivering target TV spots — noted that Cablevision Systems has deployed Visible World’s addressable advertising capability across some 3 million homes in the New York market.

“On Cablevision, the addressability is actually here, and the combination of interactivity and addressability is coming soon,” he said. “I’m trying to add a little optimism to the 10-year plan because if it’s here in one place it should be able to go other places pretty easily.” Haberman was alluding to the presentation earlier by SMGx executives calling for TV providers to be fully enabled for addressable advertising by 2020.

Meanwhile, Hanlon said privacy should be a major concern for advanced forms of TV advertising and is an area “probably overdue for regulation.”

“We have to take a pause and be realistic about how far we can take targeting,” he said. “Anything in the television environment will probably be even more scrutinized than anything on the Internet.”

Haberman, though, said cable operators have been sensitive to privacy issues from the outset and have proceeded cautiously in how they treat subscriber information. “I know because of the hoops we’ve had to jump through,” he said.

The panel was moderated by Broadcasting & Cable business editor Jon Lafayette.

Source: http://www.multichannel.com/article/464027-Advanced_Advertising_3_0_Online_Video_May_Force_TV_To_Pick_Up_The_Pace.php

Cable will retain dominance in the global multi-channel TV market over the next five years but the threat from the new generation of digital and internet protocol (IP) services will take its toll, predicts Ovum.

Globally cable TV will reach 573 million households by 2015, but will grow by an average of only three per cent per year for that period. The strongest growth will come from internet protocol TV (IPTV) with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24 per cent over the next five years to reach 109 million households.

Meanwhile digital terrestrial TV (DTT) (which includes services such as Freeview in the UK), will grow by an average of 18 per cent annually to reach 211 million households by 2015.

Jonathan Doran, Ovum analyst and author of the report, commented: “DTT growth will be fuelled primarily by the further allocation of spectrum for free-to-air services and the implementation of analog switchover deadlines, while telcos will continue to aggressively market their IPTV offerings as they play catch-up with the longer-established cable and satellite pay-TV platforms. Satellite pay-TV will remain stable in the face of competition from emerging low-cost services as it continues to attract a core of higher-value subscribers than cable.” 

Satellite TV will experience healthy average annual growth of ten per cent over the next five years to reach 419 million households worldwide. In the UK, satellite will retain its dominance reaching 13.7 million households by 2015, compared to just 3.9 million for cable. In second place is digital terrestrial, which will reach 11 million UK households in 2015, up only slightly from 10.3 million in 2010. Telco-delivered IPTV services will remain relatively insignificant in the UK market, reaching only 1.3 million UK households by 2015. However this is more than double the 2010 figure of 610,000, showing relatively strong growth.

In the US cable will retain its dominance but the number of households subscribed will drop from 60 million in 2010 to 54 million in 2015 as IPTV and internet-based alternatives continue to steal market share. Doran commented: “This is the continuation of a decline that’s already begun as households subscribing to cable dropped by four million between 2007 and 2010.

“This trend towards cancelling subscriptions, or ‘cord cutting’ has arisen due to a combination of the economic downturn and the growing availability of attractive low-cost or free digital terrestrial and internet-based options. It’s not just cord-cutting however, some cable customers will also defect to more innovative and better value IPTV and satellite pay-TV options.”

Ovum expects global pay-TV revenues to grow by nearly 40 per cent by 2015, but this figure masks significant variations between markets as well as platforms.

Source: http://www.satellitemarkets.com/node/795

SMGx Execs Eye 100% Addressable Ad Universe By Decade’s End
Muszynski, Scheppach Call For Industry Constituents To Accelerate Growth

Mike Reynolds — Multichannel News, 2/15/2011 11:27:32 PM

New York– Likening the industry push to the space race of the 1950s and 1960s, SMGx executives called for a major acceleration of addressable advertising by decade’s end.

Just as President John F. Kennedy marshaled the nation’s resources across various disciplines to reach the moon first after the Soviets had launched Sputnik, John Muszynski, chief investment officer of SMGx and Tracey Scheppach, senior vice president, innovation director at SMGx, want the industry’s various constituencies — programmers, distributors, technologists, data and research, advertisers, agencies and consumers — to coalesce and fuel the advance.

“It’s our intention to work together and be 100% addressable by end of decade,” said Scheppach, during the executives’ keynote address at the “Advanced Advertising 3.0, The Next Big Thing” event here Tuesday afternoon. The afternoon conference was presented by NewBay Media’s Multichannel News and B&C. 

Muszynski said that while he believes TV ad spending will remain strong over the years, that change is in the air. “We need to be in the business of targeting people with messages, not TV shows,” said Muszynski, whose SMGx serves clients at all three Starcom MediaVest Group media shops. “It’s time to embrace a world where consumers increasingly control the when, what and where of video consumption.”
He added stated that while YouTube has its merits, user-generated content lacks the quality viewers have grown accustomed to: “The networks and studios produce hundreds of hours of content per month that require an ad-supported model. We know it, you know it. And deep down, consumers know it.” 

Without that support and the continuing fragmentation of audiences, Scheppach averred that the industry faces three “harsh outcomes”: 1/consumers would have to pay higher subscriber fees (she believes there is a limit); 2/without the continued production of quality content, audiences will leave; and 3/the cost of spots will go “way up,” unless advertisers can “get better value” from them.
All of which leads to an expanding addressable world. The presentation, citing a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen last fall, indicated that the realm could add another “$10 billion in incremental value” to the $70 billion U.S. TV ad market.
The SGX officials noted its participation in addressable ad initiatives with 8,000 Comcast households in Huntsville, Ala., 60,000 with the nation’s top operator in Baltimore and “a few hundred thousand Cablevision customers” in Brooklyn, as reasons marketers should consider working with it.

 
They noted that those efforts yielded “greater effectiveness and efficiency” for participating clients and those experiences are setting the stage for a more ambitious gambit with national scale, involving up to 10 million DirecTV subscribers with DVRs, come September. 
After the presentation, Muszynski and Scheppach explained that the project encompasses DirecTV’s local inventory across 25 cable networks. Keeping privacy concerns in the consideration set, technology testing is underway. Ultimately, direct-response ads, shaped by readily available demographic information, geographic location and third-party data, among other criteria, will steer specific messages toward the appropriate household.

Scheppach said there has been widespread interest among clients, as all of the advertisers involved with other addressable campaigns are among those engaged with the DirecTV gambit. SMG agency clients that participated in the Huntsville test included General Motors, Discover Card, Hallmark, Kraft Foods, Mars, Miller Brewing Co. and Procter & Gamble.

“We’re committed,” he said, asking those in the room and others to express their allegiance to the cause by emailing their intent to IAmIn@smvgroup.com.

source: http://www.multichannel.com/article/464020-SMGx_Execs_Eye_100_Addressable_Ad_Universe_By_Decade_s_End.php

TV auds want instant access, panel says
HBO, Fox execs talk multiple platforms at Summit

By CYNTHIA LITTLETON

President of Programming at HBO Michael Lombardo, Managing Partner UTA Jay Sures, and President Fox TV Studios David Madden attend the 2011 TV Summit.

The central challenge facing the TV biz is managing the audience’s growing appetite for instantaneous access to programming with the need to maintain the economic viability of costly scripted programming. 

That was the consensus among panelists Tuesday at the TV Summit hosted by Variety and the TV Academy at the Renaissance Hotel.

“The challenge we’re facing going forward is that consumers want to watch (TV) however they want to get it, and that’s great but somebody has to pay for it,” said Jay Sures, partner at United Talent Agency.

Sures took part in the kickoff panel, moderated by Variety’s Stuart Levine, along with HBO programming topper Michael Lombardo and Fox TV Studios prexy David Madden.

Lombardo said the migration of viewing to broadband platforms is definitely happening, putting the onus on networks to “make sure you find a way to monetize your programming.”

Beyond the economics of online video, the proliferation of distribution options for shows is has made marketing new programming much tougher.

“People are not going to sit in front of the TV and watch shows just because you program it behind a hit,” Lombardo said. “How do you get programming out there and sampled when viewers are not watching your air?”

Sures noted that because of the way shows are dispersed, younger viewers are losing their brand associations of shows and networks. Lombardo said brand association with shows is hugely important to HBO because subscribers have to make a conscious choice each month to retain the pay service.

“Every month (subscribers) are making a decision about whether they’re getting value from us,” he said. To which Sures quipped: “You guys have more billboards around town than anyone.”

Madden argued that online vid sites like Hulu “are the smallest part of the problem” of aud fragmentation. He pointed to the issue of ad skipping on DVRs as the larger threat.

Source: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118032291

Figures released by trade body Cable Europe, as the European cable industry convenes for the Cable Congress, show that the sector’s ongoing investments in next-generation Internet access and digital television keeps paying off. With product innovations following one after the other, the industry announced strong 2010 year-end numbers.

Manuel Kohnstamm, President, Cable Europe, reported that the cable industry showed steady growth through the economic crisis, but was now really jumping ahead in performance. “The digitisation of television is re-energising our core TV product markets and our next generation 100Mb+ Internet products – and recent 1Gb+ trials – are sending competitive shockwaves through Europe,” he said.

Newly released Y/E 2010 figures show that total revenue for the industry grew by six per cent to €18.8 billion (compared to three per cent in 2009) in 2010. That growth was realised significantly in cable’s core TV market where the ongoing digitisation has resulted in a six per cent total TV revenue growth (compared to 1.6 per cent in 2009). DTV revenue is up 23 per cent and VOD revenue is up 26 per cent.

The new data from IHS Screen Digest shows that, on the subscriber side, the industry has passed the 100 million RGU mark in Europe with continued double digit subscriber growth for DTV (17.4 per cent), Internet (11 per cent) and telephony (11 per cent).

“We have a history of investing for the long term and I’m delighted that our investments are being recognised as a strategic advantage in Europe’s competitive digital environment,” added Caroline Van Weede, Managing Director, Cable Europe. “The six per cent sector growth speak is only part of our story of investment-driven innovation. We are attracting millions of European consumers who consider quality connectivity key to their daily lives. We are now more than ever a threatening contender to the incumbent telecom operators of Europe,” she declared.

Source: http://www.advanced-television.tv/index.php/2011/02/15/13461/