Published:
29-Jul-08
The Australian public broadcaster, ABC, has launched an online TV service called iView. The service, provides on demand catch-up, for shows aired on ABC1 and ABC 2 from Australian and some international producers, and it typically form the day after transmission for a period of 30 days. International content include the UK shows 'Foyle's War' and 'Wild at Heart', but does not include programmes from the major US producers. ABC's online video store - ABC Shop Downloads - continues to offer content from ABC's DVD catalogue on a download to own basis.
Programmes are streamed in as Flash videos at 650kbit/s (equivalent to the BBC's iPlayer at launch) and will work on most modern computers. However ABC is recommending that users' have a connection speed of no less than 1.1Mbit/s and actively drawing attention to the fact that many ISPs continue to operate quite strict data caps. ABC is presently in negotiation with ISPs to ensure that iView use does not count as part of user's monthly data allowance, though at time of writing only one small ISP, iiNet, has signed on.
Our take...
Free to view online catch-up has proven to be popular with consumers in the developed markets in which it has launched e.g. the BBC's iPlayer reached 21.8m stream and download requests in the UK May in 2008, less than 6 months after it launched. On the face of it ABC should be able to achieve similar results to services in the UK and US – at the end of 2007 Australian had a consumer broadband penetration of 56 percent, compared to 54 per cent in the UK and 58 per cent in the US.
However, Screen Digest believes that ABC's service faces challenges that similar services have not encountered, most notably the fact that ISPs in Australia continue to operate some hefty usage based tariffs; e.g. incumbent telco Telstra's ISP Big Pond charges AU$ 35 (£16.78) per month for 400MB at 1.2Mbit/s – insufficient to stream one 90 minute episode of 'Foyle's War' from iView. More generous data caps are available, for example, BigPond charges AU$ 69.95 (£33.53) per month for 12GB at 1.2Mbit/s, increasing the speed also adds a premium to the price. Screen Digest believes that price tiers like this stand a significant chance of slowing the uptake of online video services in the region.
Against this background it is interesting to see iiNet taking the decision not to charge for content delivered from certain premium sources. The arrangement with ABC follows the ISP's announcement in June 2008 (shortly after iTunes launched TV shows in the region) that it would not be counting purchases from Apple's store against users' monthly data allowances. How well this strategy serves the ISP, which had a 5 per cent of the Australian broadband market at the end of Q1 2008, remains to be seen.
Australia,
