Related news roundup - 09 May

Posted by andrew pascoe on May 9, 2010 · View Comments 

A few noteworthy news items from the world of VoD and IPTV from the last couple of weeks:

  • 08 May - YouTube is said to be looking to offer content owners a mechanism whereby they can charge for access to their videos in a self-service manner (CNET article). Understandably it will only initially be available to those who are already content partners.
  • 04-06 May - Some of the latest stats around VoD consumption: Virgin Media saw 200 million VoD views across 2.1 mill homes (TechRadar); time-shifted TV consumption is at 6.9% of all Tv viewing (& 13.7% in households with PVRs) says TV marketing body Thinkbox (MediaWeek); Five served 51mill total VoD viewers online in 2009, with 1.3mill long-form videos per month (PaidContent UK); ITV served an avg 16.4 million views per month to 8.7 million unique viewers per month over Q1 (ITV release).
  • Not directly related to VoD yet, but Sky announced record growth in its HD boxes - adding almost half a million of them in Q1  (Broadband TV News). This is important because the Sky+ HD box has the ethernet connection that will allow for Sky’s true-pull VoD offering to be launched to the entire HD install base later this year.
  • 04 May - Robert at PaidContent UK has a post showing some of the BBC iPlayer’s socialised aspects out in the wild (on Twitter). ‘Version 3′ of iPlayer has long been touted by Huggers & Rose as the social version, but as far as we are aware, there’s not been any publicly discussed launch/roll-out date.
  • 27 April -  Hulu has reportedly ‘abandoned’ plans to launch in the UK. Emma Barnett at the Telegraph has this article. We say reportedly however because - like all the past Telegraph pieces about how close a Hulu dea/launch was claimed to be, there is still no official statement from any party including Hulu - just the “sources close to…”.  For the record, the reasons for Hulu’s withdrawal are the oft-repeated ones: ITV is not syndicating it’s VoD content, and C4 and Five want to sell ad inventory around their content in any syndication deals they’re striking.
  • Bill Scott at Easel.tv has a piece on what a good app store could mean for TV.

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Canvas & related news roundup - 25 Aug

Posted by andrew pascoe on August 25, 2009 · View Comments 

In Project Canvas news roundup:

  • Digital Spy have a Q&A with BBC’s director of IPTV Richard Halton here. The resulting article is here (in which Halton restates the 2010 launch aim).
  • We mentioned it on Twitter when it happened, but early last week, Sky hit out again at the BBC Trust over its handling of the Project Canvas consultation - FT article here. Sky’s two main issues: that the Trust has not submitted Canvas to a full public value test, and that the 5 weeks between the release of the further detailed info and the close of the consultation period (Sep 1) was vastly insufficient.

In VOD & IPTV-related news for the last few weeks:

  • Channel 4 is to run a week of 3D programmes in autumn. 3D glasses will be available from Sainsbury’s. The programmes include unspecified movies, and footage of the Queen’s coronation.
  • Speculation continues around a UK launch for Hulu: The Tele yesterday on its site ran two different articles: one claiming ITV is signing up imminently including exclusive rights on a few of its programmes; the second saying no content partners have been signed (and also that Channel 4 is reportedly going to start showing full length episodes on YouTube); both saying a 2010 launch is the earliest possible. PaidContent points out that no one at Hulu itself (or any of the potential content providers) has ever come out and given timing objectives around the UK launch.
  • Blinkbox adds BBC Worldwide content. Some shows will be free/ad-supported while others will be paid (Broadband TV news article).
  • ITV will launch ITV1 HD on Freeview, starting with London by end of 2009 - Broadcast Now article.
  • A consumer survey by Deloitte & Yougov has found more than half of people wouldn’t watch more VOD even if they had a faster, more reliable broadband connection. 29% said they didn’t see the point in watching TV online. Media Guardian article here.
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Filed under BBC Trust, BSkyB, Blinkbox, Hulu, ITV, Related news · Tagged with ,