Early Thoughts from IBC
Colin Dixon, Senior Partner
Sept. 11, 2009
I sat in on a couple of interesting panel discussions this afternoon at IBC. The first panel topic was “Online Video: Going over the top” and the CEO of IP Vision, Eddie Abrams, was the first speaker. He talked about the new hybrid PVR box they are selling at retail for £200 ($330) in the UK. This hybrid PVR box seamlessly combines Freeview, the UK free-to-air digital TV service, with broadband delivered content such as movies and music into a service they’re calling Fetch TV. They also wrap into the experience the BBC iPlayer. This gives viewers start-over and catch-up TV functionality for everything the BBC broadcasts.
In the second panel, consisting of three panelists, the discussion was about who the winners and losers would be in the burgeoning over-the-top TV market. The consultant, from Deloitte LLP, and the analyst, from Screen Digest, engaged in battle of numbers. Both agreed that the OTT market was expanding rapidly sighting the recent rosy numbers released by Comscore. Both agreed that the TV ad market was collapsing across industrialized counties (with Spain experiencing a 28% year-over-year drop in TV ad revenue) but still expanding in the developing regions, such as Russia and Brazil, at an 8-10% per year rate. Curiously, both agreed that Hulu was earning “good revenue” despite the fact that you won’t find any of the content backers of Hulu claiming this.
A member of the audience asked Gerry to comment about the use of the widget engine in new TVs and how the inclusion of widgets for Internet video services might affect his business. Curiously, he went off on a tangent about how people wouldn’t want “to do Facebook” on the TV and he couldn’t be drawn back to the central issue of the OTT video threat to his business despite the questioner's best efforts. Perhaps Gerry is not quite seeing the wood for the trees!
Under the careful tutelage of a reckless exhibitor, TDG was able to sneak by the surly but distracted security at IBC to gain access to the under-construction Orca booth. There Ofer Weintraub, Orca CTO, and Shahar Smirin, Founder & CEO of Trusted Opinion, gave us a great demo of some of the new social features of the Orca TV Guide, called Compass. Two outstanding features really illustrate something that we’ve been saying for a while: operators should be using the Internet to modernize their existing PayTV services.
To help subscribers better leverage the TV channels they already pay for, the Orca guide doesn’t show you what’s on in a classic grid. Rather, the guide shows you programs that you might like across all channels you have access to that are playing right now. It does this based on learned preferences about you and leveraging Trusted Opinion’s 1+ million users’ opinions. No more scrolling though the guide, you go straight to the good stuff.
Also, what if you don’t know what you want to watch but you want to be entertained? Just click on the “I’m bored” button. Once again leveraging the Trusted Opinion system the guide asks your friends to make a recommendation to you in real-time. In no time, you have the helpful opinions of your friends about what you should watch right now.
Any operators at the show should stop by their booth and check it out themselves.
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