‘TV Everywhere’ ready for live linear
March 21, 2013
Although consumers have been slow to warm to ‘TV Everywhere’ services, a new white paper from consumer technology and media behaviours TDG suggests that adding live linear access to the mix would drive widespread use of the service, enhance operator value, and even generate new incremental revenue.
The white paper, Bringing Multiscreen Live Linear Programming to Operator ‘TV Everywhere’, discusses TDG’s new research in detail, and presents a convincing case as to why incumbent pay-TV operators should add live linear broadband distribution to their TVE offerings.
TDG surveyed 1,000 online video viewers (which represent close to nine in ten adult broadband users) as to their perceptions regarding the delivery of live linear content via a TVE service. In other words, instead of only having access to on-demand content (which comprises most of today’s TVE offerings), they would receive real-time TV transmissions over broadband so that they can access live TV on any net-connected device.
More than 80 per cent of respondents rate anywhere/anytime live linear access to their pay-TV channels as valuable (‘5’ or higher on a 7-point scale). In fact, nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) ranked the application as highly valuable (‘6’ or higher), a very rare occurrence in consumer research.
“If there is any doubt as to what pay-TV providers should do to increase the use of their TVE services and enhance brand value perception, that doubt is now removed,” notes Michael Greeson, Founding Partner at TDG and author of the new white paper. “Adding live linear access to their delivery options is not only technologically feasible; it would be widely used and increase the perceived value of the subscription (something operators definitely need as prices continue to increase and OTT becomes more competitive).”