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.

Filed under Channel4, FIVE, Hulu, ITV, Virgin Media, iPlayer · Tagged with

Related news roundup - 12 Feb

Posted by andrew pascoe on February 12, 2010 · View Comments 

So, as the saying almost goes, it’s been a long time between IPTV/VoD drinks here at the blog.  Below are some news clips to do with all things VoD & IPTV from February so far. Over the weekend we’ll post a backlog of related news items (from the ‘not so fresh’ bookmarks, all the way back to Dec), and we’ll be back early next week with all the coverage of the DTG’s submission to the BBC Trust - where they claim Canvas is being developed as a ‘parallel standard’ to the DTG’s own work (if you’re not aware, this could have big implications - it is the DTG after all who is supposed to be helping the Project Canvas group develop the Canvas standards).

  • 9 Feb - Tubefilter has a look at the possible reasons why Hulu is getting involved in original web series (Simon Fullers’ ‘If I can dream’)
  • 10 Feb - Freeview’s upcoming ad campaign will focus on the HD part of Freeview HD, and not mention the internet connectivity of the Freeview HD boxes, nor any specific connected TV opps like Samsung’s iPlayer syndication -  Broadband TV News.   And a survey commissioned by Freeview suggests that 360,000 Sky+ HD households are “likely” to switch to Freeview HD - Guardian article. Lastly, Freeview is solidly entertaining the possibility of 3D channels being available on its platform in the future - possibly in 5 years. Broadband TV News.
  • 10 Feb - VAST is a new template for video adserving that aims to standardise video ads around on demand content online & boost advertiser adoption. It’s backed by the IAB, both in the US and here in the UK - and the IAB Video Council here has all the big adservers (except Atlas) and most of the big video content providers (4, ITV, Sky, et al). BrandRepublic blog.
    On a related note, the IAB UK Video Council also have a pretty active community over at their site here.
  • 10 Feb - On a related note, New Media Age reports that ITV & Channel 4 have cut their online video rates to boost uptake - perhaps by as much as half.
  • 5 Feb - Channel 4 is wanting to start selling pre-rolls alongside its contet on BT Vision, the IPTV offering from BT.  IPTVNews
  • 4 Feb - In the US, Hulu’s ‘ad selector’ ad placement - the one where the viewer gets to select which brand they’ll see ads from during the program - has been chosen as best online video ad unit, by Publicis unit VivaKi. MediaWeek article
  • 3 Feb - TellyLinks is a new consumer offering  that attempts to capitalise on second screen interest, by showing viewers, on the TellLinks site, links  that are relevant to the program being watched on the TV screen . It’s run by Jeff Henry a former ITV Consumer MD.  Guardian article here.  Its first public trial - an episode of Numbers on Five - didn’t go so well, with the site crashing (one blog post on that night here).
  • 1 Feb - Views of Virgin Media VoD service increase 50% year on year, to a total of 750m for 2009. VoD is used by 59% of Virgin’s 3.9mill TV customers. Media Guardian.

Filed under BT, Channel4, Freeview, Hulu, Uncategorized · Tagged with

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 ,