Multiscreen Intelligence

Scaling OTT Part 2: The channel conundrum | 24 Jan 13 tags › Our recent analysis of the scaling costs for OTT concluded that platform-agnostic OTT services cannot be scaled to deliver simultaneous mass-audience television at the current cost base. The same scaling issues also apply to single mass-audience channels, but for channels with a low to medium viewing share, scaling for OTT may not be such an issue. OTT streaming can work out cheaper than broadcast for individual low-medium consumption channels. But the current economics of the television business mean that OTT remains an incremental cost rather than a substitutive one. Nonetheless, the cost analysis highlights the potential importance of OTT Unicast streaming as a potential substitute for broadcast once the distribution and installed user base scales. By extension, it highlights a potential new business role for IP infrastructure owners in the channel distribution market.

Expanding Quickflix runs into trouble | 07 Jan 13 tags › Launched in 2004 as a DVD-by-post service, Quickflix became one of the leading disc rental businesses in Australia. In October 2011 the company launched a SVoD streaming service, WatchNow. The company also launched a pay-per-view option and expanded into New Zealand in spring 2012. However, hit by spiraling content acquisition costs, falling per-subscriber revenues and a cashflow crisis, Australian online movie subscription and disc rental service Quickflix last month delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange. Quickflix has now begun a restructuring programme aimed at reducing its costs and offsetting per-subscriber revenue declines.

Scaling OTT: Do the economics stack up? | 11 Sep 12 tags › OTT delivery of TV content is widely touted as the future of television as well as a disruptor of traditional platform-based pay television services. This view fails to take account of the current cost/benefit of delivering OTT with Unicast streaming and of the importance of platform ownership in benefitting from potential cost reductions from IP Multicast or network design. Platform-agnostic OTT services cannot be scaled at the current cost base to service the viewing demands of the average television viewer. Solutions for OTT provides risk removing many of the cost advantages that OTT providers offer over traditional pay TV.

Kit Digital to file for Chapter 11 | 25 Apr 13 tags › Video solutions provider and systems integrator Kit Digital will file for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. Under Chapter 11, Kit's corporate reorganization will be backed by the firm's three largest shareholders...

Dell launches Create platform for media | 24 Apr 13 tags › US computer and server manufacturer Dell has launched the Create platform, its opening salvo in the highly competitive media management and media production solutions market. Create is a consulting practice...

BBC iPlayer consumption sees tablets edge ahead of smartphones, both categories remain key | 24 Apr 13 tags › BBC iPlayer usage in the UK via tablets was higher than it was via mobile phones for the first time ever in March 2013. Collectively, tablets and mobile devices made up around 30 per cent of all iPlayer...

Connected Video Devices | 05 Apr 12 The battle for the audience is in full swing as everyone from pay-TV operators to TV set-makers is offering multiple services on a multitude of devices from PCs to connected or smart TVs and tablets to phones and game consoles. On which devices are audiences seeing your programmes and, most importantly, who is in control of the connected device experience? This presentation, given at MIPTV 2012, explores the current market for connected video devices, the positioning of multiscreen services by various types of service provider, and the question over who controls the consumer experience on each device type.

Multiscreen in its early days | 16 Mar 12 Although only just budding within the wider pay-TV market, multiscreen services are becoming increasingly commonplace in North America and Western Europe. This presentation - delivered as a webinar on March 14, 2012 - is an opportunity to examine the state of a market that is still in flux. Using a mixture of operator case studies, deployment data and device counts, the presentation focuses on the strategies that operators are employing to drive subscriber acquisition and retention, and the further opportunities that are available to them.