Special Report
IPTV revenue
enhancement
through interactivity
IAN VALENTINE, chief architect & founder of Miniweb Interactive, reports.
T
o set themselves apart from between them, means that they are for the It is all about value. Content owners, IPTV
traditional Pay TV operators, many most part struggling to attract interactive operators and advertisers all need to see a
IPTV operators’ revenue plans predict content and failing to gain the support of return on their investments with interactive TV.
additional streams from VoD and interactive broadcasters and advertisers. After all, consumers would like to have a more
interactive yet, while VoD usage has proved Fortunately there is a solution. engaging and empowering TV experience with
popular with viewers, few operators in the past access to personalised and relevant broadcast
have broken into a profitable interactive Overcoming barriers to interactive service and broadband entertainment content.
service offering. adoption Making interactive services a success on an
Basic economics demand that IPTV IPTV platform requires a step-change in the
operators deploying interactive services need Miniweb Interactive is the world’s first shared economics associated with interactive
to cost-effectively launch and deploy them, multi-network interactive service provider, TV, and requires:
and then drive up usage to make them pay. operating an open-standard based interactive • the costs of service creation and deployment
Key to delivering usage is gaining the support platform with service deployment capability to be closer to web-based levels
of broadcasters and advertisers, who through across multiple types of IPTV solutions and • usage to be increased, delivering greater
the power of on screen programming, are able networks. consumer appeal
to drive audiences to participative in By sharing a common interactive platform, • integration with core entertainment
interactive advertising. network specific costs can be reduced, and propositions
For the IPTV operator’s traditional Pay-TV interactive services can be designed, built, Services that are expensive to build and run
rivals, who in the main use proprietary tested and deployed in a single effort by the and are deployed to a small number of devices
broadcast oriented interactive solutions, the broadcaster, advertiser or content owner to all are ultimately doomed to failure. However,
cost and time taken to launch new interactive IPTV operators. This makes interactive a key services that can be developed cheaply,
services means that new service launches are area where collectively the IPTV industry can deployed widely, across multiple IPTV
relatively rare events. By using their punch above its weight. By having the latest networks, operated at low cost, and associated
broadband return paths, the IPTV operator has generation of networks and devices, IPTV with IPTV audiences to generate traffic, can
the potential to be much more nimble, operators will be able to deliver a content make real economic sense.
launching new services in days or weeks driven, converged broadcast and broadband Whatever the motive for interacting with
rather than months or years, and doing so far interactive entertainment experience ahead of audiences, until now success on traditional Pay
more economically. So what has been holding its traditional Pay TV rivals. TV networks has been limited to the best
them back? To date, interactive TV (iTV) on traditional resourced broadcasters, channel owners and
Ian Valentine.
Although Pay TV networks has been a success in various advertisers. For example, on digital satellite, it
boasting ‘niche’, high value applications such as TV has can cost as much as £1 million to build,
potentially better betting and interactive advertising, yet despite test, deploy and deliver major interactive
interactive and these successes it has failed to enter the television services and £10,000 a month
return path mainstream, largely due to a combination of operational costs are typical. Such a high cost-
technologies, the commercial and technical barriers that have base has been a major barrier to entry,
relatively small prevented its widespread adoption. With IPTV, inhibiting the wide-spread adoption of
numbers of IPTV many of these barriers disappear; the interactive TV as a market segment.
device fundamentals of enabling sustainable
deployments, and interactive TV is to change the economics of Making interactive TV successful
the fragmentation service testing and deployment, and drive up
of interactive value for the content owner by providing them From past experience the following is
technologies more addressable devices. clear: for interactive TV to become
guide2iptv iptv 20 september 2008
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