Households in Western Europe with TV services to top 180 million in 2013

CONNECTIONS™ Europe announces call for papers to address new challenges, opportunities in changing product and service landscape --

CONNECTIONS™ Europe has announced the call for papers for its upcoming Summit, November 4, 2009, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit, hosted by international research firm Parks Associates, is dedicated to the discussion and analysis of new business models for emerging services, applications, and advanced digital technologies. The event will take place at the Mövenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre.

CONNECTIONS™ Europe is accepting speaker submissions within five main topic categories.
Adding Value to Access Services examines the impact of broadband value-added services and the role and design of connected CE enabling these services.

Digital Home Tech Services examines consumer demand and new revenue opportunities for installation, troubleshooting, and service plans.

Residential Gateways – Devices Enabling New Services examines hardware requirements and service opportunities as these devices enable enhanced bundled services and home connectivity applications.

Video Devices & Entertainment Platforms examines the new roles and functions for the television, the set-top, the game console, the PC, portable devices, and mobile phones as well as the software enabling these technologies.

Television, Digital Media Services, & Advanced Video examines next-generation entertainment applications and “go-to-TV” services and products.

CONNECTIONS™ Global Sponsors include HD-PLC Alliance, DSC, Macrovision, MoCA, Radialpoint, ActiveVideo Networks, Affinegy, Icron, Irdeto, NXP, ProVision Communications, Telcordia, and Zilog. CONNECTIONS™ Europe Advisory Sponsor is Eyecon Technologies.
Visit http://www.connectionseurope.com for sponsorship information or to submit a speaking proposal. Deadline for submission is August 15, 2009.

For the full press release, click here.

Parks Associates forecasts over 1.4 billion subscribers worldwide for TV services by 2013

Primetime anytime services will help providers gain and retain subscribers --

Broadband households in Europe and the U.S. consistently rank primetime anytime VoD services as the most valuable service out of all TV 2.0 offerings, according to Parks Associates’ new report Television Services: The Global Outlook.

The international research firm says that primetime anytime services, which allow viewers to watch a show on-demand on their TV regardless of its original air date, will help service providers gain and retain customers in the competitive global market for TV services. The number of households worldwide subscribing to TV services will exceed 1.4 billion by 2013.

Competition among service providers has increased substantially in past few years. For example, while cable operators retain the largest share of the U.S. television service market, subscriptions to telco/IPTV services grew over 110% from 2007 to 2008. Providers can overcome the challenges of this shifting market by leveraging primetime anytime services, which will increase customer satisfaction and create avenues for new revenue-generating service strategies, such as ad-supported VoD offerings.

Parks Associates’ upcoming CONNECTIONS™ conference features new research regarding advanced television services. For information about this event, visit www.connectionsconference.com.

From the Future of Television Conference

I am in New York this week spending time at The Future of Television East event, which was held Tuesday and Wednesday. It was another interesting conference, with a mixture of media executives and the "old guard" of television plus the companies that are now making noise in the online video space (Hulu, blip.tv, Break.com, etc.).

There are definitely some differing opinions about what online and mobile video means to the broadcasters. Representatives from NBC-U, CBS, and ABC are all very positive about raising TV audience numbers. However, a new IBM study says that active online video viewers are watching less TV.

Interesting data from CBS about average audience age for a how like How I Met Your Mother:
• On air: mid-40s
• Online: 28

CBS says says that while 75% of Internet users are watching some video online each week television viewing has gone up 8% in all demographics since 2000. Teenagers are watching 7% more television over that time.

What Jeff Zucker said last year about how digital media is effectively turning “analog dollars into digital pennies” looms over all of this supposed good news the broadcasters are reporting. Many in the audience were interested in knowing whether the broadcasters felt that they were actually growing their revenues as opposed to simply stemming their losses. Nobody ever answered that question. I sense that we’re still in such a fuzzy area about this new age of digital distribution that nobody really knows the answer. Lots of hope that VoD and targeted advertising can boost revenues for both the broadcasters and the cable operators. Lots of hope that social networking aspects of this new digital era will allow consumers to be more fully immersed in both programming and advertising, but it seems largely theoretical right now.

From TelcoTV

We're at the TelcoTV show in Anaheim this week, and getting updates on the trends in telco/IPTV services on a global basis. Some of the things that have caught my eye include:

• Web integration of VoD and remote DVR services. Everyone seems to be talking about a Facebook integration and recommendations for VoD titles. I saw an interesting demonstration from SeaChange, where their Affinity recommendation engine allows users to recommend things like VoD titles. That could enhance the VoD take rate.
• Also, interesting to hear of strategies that put IPTV content on PCs. Cisco has worked with Adobe to provide a solution to Telecom Italia, where their content is available on the Telecom Italia yalp.it portal. Working with Verimatrix, SeaChange is offering a "soft set-top box" application for PCs. They are aiming this at universities, where students may be less inclined to have TVs, but still want to view premium TV content on their laptops.
• All kinds of interesting social networking applications built around Facebook applications and enabling features such as recommendations, chat, etc. Nortel announced a number of social networking and interactive services, including Digital Vault, where subscribers can upload their personal content to secure network-hosted storage solutions.
• There are all kinds of multi-screen demonstrations, where viewers can watch DVR content and then move it to a mobile device to continue watching. You can bet that telcos are looking to leverage their mobile assets and add a new dimension for viewing.
• Delivering non-linear advertising (interactive, VoD, etc.) is a big topic this year. It will be an interesting area to watch.

TV and Social Networking Article from The Wall Street Journal

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Christopher Lawton says that the television experience is about to take a cue from what's been happening with connected game consoles. Both Microsoft and Sony will be launching social networking features that can be accessed through their online gaming services.

We tested a number of social-networking-at-the-TV-features in our TV 2.0: The Consumer Perspective report and found that the ability by users to share recorded content with friends and see "Most Watched" lists (like what Verizon is doing with its "Whats Hot" feature) are the most appealing social networking features on the television screen.

Advanced services for primetime programming key to reducing churn and increasing ARPU

Primetime programming is still the cornerstone for advanced television features, which will increase service provider revenues and reduce customer churn, according to Parks Associates’ TV 2.0: The Industry Perspective. This new report indicates over 50% of U.S. broadband households find on-demand primetime services appealing, putting these offerings at the top of the list of advanced television features that includes VOD libraries, multiroom DVR, PC-TV connectivity, and informational widgets.

The report states that video-on-demand (VOD) services are the most potent weapons service providers have in preventing churn, attracting new subscribers, and building new revenues.

TV 2.0: The Industry Perspective examines the growth of television services in major markets in Asia, Europe, and North America and analyzes the growth strategies that cable operators, telecommunications, and satellite service providers are adopting in these markets.

For the full press release, visit: http://newsroom.parksassociates.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5104