Screen Digest Reports: Television, Film and Cinema, Video and DVD, Broadband media, Mobile media and Games

High-Speed broadband in Scandinavia | 08 Apr 13 tags › Scandinavia is home to some of the highest quality broadband in Europe and the demand for high-speed services is greater than ever. Operators are under intense pressure to provide these services and rolling out high-speed broadband enables operators in this region to offer superior content including HD via IPTV and better quality Video-on demand services. As a result, operators have upgraded their networks using a variety of technologies, and fixed line telcos have used FTTH and VDSL2 with cable companies adopting DOCSIS 3. Going forward, the growth of high-speed connections will vary significantly depending on the country. Two of the greatest influencing factors will be regulation and current network conditions.

Online Video Growth for RTL Group | 30 Mar 13 tags › European broadcaster RTL Group reported a 25 per cent increase in online video consumption in 2012, with its services generating over 2.4bn user-requests for professionally-produced content. Mobile and tablet devices have been a key focus for the group, which operates free-to-air TV channels in Germany, France, the Netherlands and other countries. Through 2012, the company relaunched a number of its catch-up TV apps, integrating social media functionality with the aim of helping to drive uptake and usage.

Fixed broadband operators looking to cheaper fibre alternatives | 28 Feb 13 tags › Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) is the most 'future proof' technology used for the provision of high-speed broadband services, but due to its high cost many operators are exploring a range of technologies which are cheaper and quicker to roll out. We expect that given the emergence of copper-based technologies capable of keeping pace with FTTH, operators will not necessarily select pure fibre access deployments over the next 5 - 10 years, but instead will make choices regarding network construction based on legacy network configuration, time and competition considerations.

Transactional Movies: The Big Picture in 2012 and Beyond | 15 Feb 13 tags › Based on the recently published Movies: Cross-platform Market Monitor, this insight report highlights the trends which shaped transactional movie spending and consumption across the globe in 2012. The report includes data selected from five IHS Screen Digest intelligence services, available across all four movie distribution platforms and covering five geographical regions. The result is a cross-sectional look at the global market for movies, by region and by platform, outlining in detail where growth is being generated; in 2012 and during the forecast period to 2016.

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.

Movies: Cross-platform Market Monitor | 16 Jan 13 tags › This Cross-platform Movie Market Monitor examines the market for movies across five major geographical regions and four key distribution channels; theatrical, physical, pay TV VOD services, and digital distribution.

Swedish online movie sector poised for growth as competitive environment heats up | 14 Jan 13 tags › 2012 saw the emergence of Sweden as a hotspot of online video activity, with a number of new services launched or announced, including US-based streaming service Netflix, Filmnet (from TV4 and C More) and HBO. Consequently, we see the market poised for growth. From an anticipated Euro 10m for full year 2012, we expect a growth of 113 per cent in 2013 up to Euro 21.4m. At the moment, there are more than 11 large and active OTT movie providers and the number of the services is expected to grow still further over the next 2-years as others attempt to cash in. In this environment, within a 6-7 year timespan, we would expect consumers to begin to settle on their preferred services, and winners and losers in the sector begin to emerge. Experience in the pay TV sector suggests that ultimately, only a few key players will be able to win out. As a consequence, despite the rapid expansion in services seen in the last year, we expect the Swedish online movie market to see some consolidation once the current slew of launches begins to slow.

Romanian Broadband: High speed and strong competition in cities, but urban-rural split still significant | 08 Jan 13 tags › Romania has one of the lowest broadband household penetration levels in the EU (40 per cent), but due to deployment of new technologies, it is also one of the EU countries with highest broadband connection speeds. Almost all Romanian ISPs offer fibre-mixed technology broadband access, leading the Romanian regulator to report 89 per cent of all broadband connections in Romania as FTTx. Mobile access remains the only alternative to fixed broadband in many rural areas, with all main mobile operators planning the launch of LTE in 2013.

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.

Cross-Platform Television Viewing Time - FY 2012 | 18 Dec 12 tags › This Cross-Platform Television Viewing Time market monitor examines trends in the time spent watching television and video content across the multiple devices available today, including the traditional TV set. The markets covered include the US and the big five European markets; UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain

A window of opportunity: Online video providers and changing movie rights windows | 18 Dec 12 tags › With the launch of Netflix in multiple European markets, and Lovefilm's earnest push into the subscription streaming sector across its traditional physical markets, the battle for subscription film rights is beginning to intensify in Western Europe after a long period of dominance of incumbent pay TV services.

Cross Platform 3D Movies Market Monitor | 15 Nov 12 tags › This cross-platform 3D Movies Market Monitor examines the addressable market for 3D entertainment across the three key distribution channels for 3D movies: Cinema, Video and Pay TV VoD. It provides an insight into the impact of different growth rates of 3D hardware penetration across key markets as well as analysis of different release strategies for 3D content across all three platforms. The report looks at how the developing market for 3D home entertainment is impacting total 3D movie spending amid a mature market for 3D Cinema. The report also examines the key drivers for 3D movie consumption across the three distribution channels with a detailed focus on the breakdown of 3D movie spending in the US and the big three European markets. A special focus on China is also covered as one of the worlds' fastest growing 3D movie markets.