Broadband Media Intelligence: research on digital media, online TV, online movies and music

High growth potential for MENA region as worldwide broadband connections reach 545m | 08 Feb 12 tags › There were 545m fixed broadband connections worldwide by end 2011, up by 963 per cent year-on-year. China had the largest number of DSL and FTTP subscribers by end 2011, totaling 104.85m and 27.2m respectively and the USA had the largest cable modem subscriber base at 46.19m. Penetration in the Middle East is low compared to the rest of the world, but Israel had one of the highest broadband penetration rates in the region at 68.4 per cent. Morocco, Egypt, Qatar and the UAE all have relatively small broadband markets but potential for growth in these countries is high.

First UltraViolet discs hit the US market | 16 Dec 11 tags › Warner Home Video launched the first UltraViolet-enabled Blu-ray Disc (BD) titles in the US in October with a UK launch confirmed for 26 December and Canada next in line. Studios expect to expand the frequency of UltraViolet (UV) discs to the point that, by the holiday sales season of 2012, most major theatrical releases will come to these markets on UV-compliant discs. As a first step, the studios have clearly been smart in focusing on the initial delivery of UV rights via discs, on which US consumers will spend $9.2bn this year anyway, rather than via downloads, on which they will spend just $667m. Trying to maintain the value in the physical space is clearly a key short term strategic priority.

The big picture on video entertainment spending | 14 Dec 11 tags › While pay TV operators, networks and investors worry about the potential of cord-cutting, cord-shaving or cord-avoidance (various ways for consumers to limit their spending on pay TV subscriptions), the reality is that consumers are generally keeping their pay TV subscriptions and finding other areas to cut back their entertainment spending-mainly by cutting back on their purchasing of physical discs. The digitization of both networks and physical media since the early 1990s, created a video entertainment business that generated more than $100bn ($101bn to be exact) for the first time in 2010. But growth has slowed markedly in recent years, as a flattening picture for transactional spending post 2004, went negative in 2008-2010.

Scandinavian media group Schibsted acquires on-demand music provider Aspiro | 18 Jan 12 tags › Norway-based news publisher Schibsted has agreed to acquire online and mobile on-demand music provider Aspiro for 340m Swedish krona (?38.4m, $49m) to add to its existing portfolio of European media and...

Spanish anti-piracy law enacted by new government | 12 Jan 12 tags › Spain's Sustainability Economic Law - which includes clauses covering intellectual property rights and online piracy and is popularly known as the Ley Sinde - has been ratified by the new centre-right Partido Popular government after just two weeks in office.

Netflix launches in UK and Ireland | 10 Jan 12 tags › US disc-by-mail and online video provider Netflix has launched an online streaming offer in the UK and Ireland. The service, which is now available to consumers for £5.99 per month, contains a selection...

Branding & video: a new paradigm for online advertising | 24 Oct 11 This presentation analyses the role of online video in the wider ecosystem of brand advertising. Whereas overall brand advertising as share of GDP is going to decline until the end of our forecast period in 2015, online advertising is experiencing a renaissance of brand advertising. Online video is a critical driver for this and attracts new advertiser categories, most notably FMCGs, from TV to online. However TV advertising will remain indispensable for large brand messages, even in the age of online video and changing marketing philosophies. Within online advertising, data is the new oil. Real-time-bidding, backed by a vast amount of multisource, live consumer data, is turning online advertising into a market place. This opens up new opportunities for targeting, but also entails a bifurcation of video advertising between branding and performance.

The future for linear TV | 27 Sep 11 Richard Broughton presented at IHS Screen Digest's TV Channels Seminar, in London 2011, addressing the subject of how much TV is consumed on a non-linear basis. With increasing concern from TV channels regarding the future of the broadcast TV business and how consumers will be viewing content in the coming years, Richard presented new IHS Screen Digest research quantifying the extent to which consumers are moving away from traditional linear TV, and gave an overview of how IHS Screen Digest believes that this behaviour will evolve over the next five years.