Per capita Australians are buying and renting more film and TV content online than any other country except the US, according to a new study.

The fast growing digital market is split almost evenly between purchases (electronic sell -through) and rental (Video-on-Demand), unlike most other territories where VoD dominates.

Digital film and TV consumer revenues reached $143.6 million, excluding GST, in 2013, according to the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association (AHEDA), which covers more than 90% of the market. That’s a 22.4% gain on 2012, which was up 36% on the prior year when those stats were first compiled. Read more »

• Free-to-air, internet key to growing Super Rugby audience

With most of his time dedicated to looking after the Australian Football League, Gill McLachlan uses any spare moments to catch up on another of his sporting passions, American football’s New England Patriots.

Like an increasing number of fans, McLachlan uses his computer to watch the exploits of star quarterback Tom Brady through so-called internet protocol television – IPTV. Read more »

Its very interesting how catch up TV properties are viewed (or not viewed) in Australia.

If a program is to be aired on the ABC and a user feels that he/she will miss this program they will often state “I’ll watch in on iView ”.

This is because the ABC invested early in the iView platform which enables users to watch almost anything shown on the ABC. Its a system available online, iphone, ipad, Android, Xbox, WD TV etc and it just works and works well.

In contrast the commercial channels have also finally offered catch up services but have done little to make it known that they exist.

If users are faced with the desire to watch two programs that happen to on at the same time on competing commercial networks they will often look at ways to watch one and record the other (for later viewing) either using a PVR or Foxtel IQ. In fact its already known that many opt for Foxtel because of the sports content but it would be interesting to ascertain how many opt for Foxtel for the IQ function, that is, the ability to record.

Many don’t consider the commercial catch up services because its just not widespread enough that they exist or that they offer the service without asking for anything in return, like subscription fees or membership.

 

A third of Australia will be left to rot on struggling cable broadband networks after the Coalition further downscaled the national fibre network.

Some people held out hope that once in power Turnbull would try to steer away from Abbott’s wrecking ball approach to the NBN and find a way to roll out as much fibre as practical.

The Government’s strategic review of the NBN, released on Thursday, actually delivers much less than what Malcolm Turnbull proposed when in opposition. Probably the biggest change is that the government now intends to connect almost a third of the country to the existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) cable networks rather than fibre-to-the-premises or even fibre-to-the-node. If pay TV cable runs down your street you can probably spot the problems with this plan. Read more »

Nine and Foxtel’s Netflix rivals are lining up to take on the US streaming giant if it officially comes to Australia next year.

Australians have always been treated as second-class citizens when it comes to online video. Local services such as Quickflix, EzyFlix, Bigpond Movies and Apple’s iTunes charge more than their US counterparts but offer less. It’s tempting to accuse them of price gouging but most of the blame lies with Hollywood, which screws Australians simply because it can get away with it. Read more »

In a world where pay television and online TV services are demanding an ever-larger slice of your wallet or purse, one complaint rings more loudly than all others: “Why can’t I just buy the channels I like?”

There are up to 113 billion reasons why, according to US media analyst Laura Martin. Read more »

Google’s YouTube video service is dipping its toe into pay television by starting a subscription service with 30 content creators, including children’s programmers Sesame Street and Muppet creator The Jim Henson Co, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

YouTube, the world’s largest video website, allows creators to set subscription fees and accept advertisements, at their discretion, for the channels they create.

For $US4.99 a month, subscribers can get golf lessons from the PGA Golf Academy. The Laugh Factory charges $US2.99 for clips of stand-up comedy routines and Henson charges $US2.99 for full length episodes of Sid the Science Kid and Fraggle Rock.

YouTube has spoken repeatedly about its intent to experiment with paid channels, and has made no secret about its intent to be a major player in quality content.

"If feels to me as if history is repeating itself," said Tony Vinciquerra, former chairman of News Corp’s Fox Networks Group. "In the early ’80s cable providers subsidised channels to enhance offerings to consumers and increase penetration. Fast forward to today, and YouTube is subsidising the development of new content offerings."

YouTube will feature content from traditional TV and film producers, company executives said, and at the launch featured children’s videos from National Geographic and videos from cable channel HDNet.

That could eventually be a threat to cable and TV operators, but no time soon, said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst with BTIG.

"I think everyone who creates video programming should be worried about the growth of new content channels," he said. "Broadcast TV has been hurt by cable. Broadcast is still a very large business despite fragmentation."

Content creators will get most of their revenue from subscriptions, as they already do from advertising on the site, according to company officials.

In March, YouTube said on its blog that it has more than 1 billion unique users a month. The new subscription service will be available in 10 countries at launch.

YouTube has spent more than $US100 million to help about 150 media partners create and promote specialised YouTube video channels dedicated to topics ranging from food to sports.

"Consumers have gotten used to getting their content on the web," said Laura Martin, senior analyst with Needham and Co. "The question is whether they will pay for it."

Reuters

We’ll build you SMART TV apps including:

• Samsung
• LG
• Sony
• Philips
• Sharp
• Google TV
• Yahoo

With connection to your pre-existing Content Management System (CMS) so you can use the same platform that drives your mobiles apps and website. We can also do Pay-walls.

IT SEEMS old habits die hard. Despite being sold as the next must-have item for technology-savvy homes, the vast majority of ”smart” television sets remain unconnected to the internet.

And industry executives report that of the 1.5 million sets that are connected, a small percentage of people are actually surfing the internet for programs to watch.

Smart TVs are marketed as the gateway to the internet, where a wealth of programs is just waiting to be found. But the reality is few people have ventured forth.
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Telstra’s executive director of media, J. B Rousselot, said: ”A huge number of people have bought them because they are the latest TVs. A lot haven’t bothered to plug in the cable and for those who have, a lot of them haven’t discovered what they can do on it.”

Manufacturers such as Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and LG are banking on the sets to deliver a sales fillip after the market for flatscreen TVs plateaued.

Market leader Samsung, for example, has done deals with YouTube, ABC iview, film rental company Quickflix, Foxtel and Wiggle Time TV for them to appear as apps on its screens.

Smart TVs and set-top boxes such as Telstra’s T-Box are part of a new wave of operators attempting to woo the 75 per cent of the population that are not subscribers to Foxtel or Austar into paying for some TV services.

But Mr Rousselot said that even when presented with a choice of subscription channels, the viewing habits of his T-Box subscribers remain unchanged – they still watch the same free-to-air channels in much the same numbers as they did before they paid their $11 monthly subscription.

The editor of PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Entertainment and Media Outlook, Megan Brownlow, is not surprised.

”You have to think about the way in which we watch TV. Most of us work long hours and are tired at the end of a long day. When we watch TV, it is a slump back experience,” she said. ”Being in a lean forward position and being confronted with too much choice is probably too much for most people.”

Although connection figures for all TV sets are unavailable, Samsung disputed the figures, saying 60 per cent – roughly six times industry estimates – of the 600,000 sets it sold are connected and that in one month 150,000 clips were accessed from the internet and watched.

Source

Your TV experience is about to get a whole lot more social, with government researchers partnering with the ABC to bring Twitter and Facebook integration to virtually any show on any channel.

The technology, developed by the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation, displays tweets about a show overlaid on top of the TV image and is also able to recommend shows based on previous behaviour and on what the viewer’s Facebook friends are watching. Read more »