Content is King…. for whom?
Particularly in the IPTV space, many articles can be found regarding “content as king” with the implication that compelling content will drive viewership, assuming all other things equal such as quality of service, etc. A recent report from Analysys Mason regarding multi-play services (this was the Triple Play of phone, broadband and video/IPTV with mobile not included in the particular analysis) in the Western European market found a “lack of compelling TV content from telcos” and “difficulties in transferring telco brand attributes to the TV content market” as barriers to Telco TV penetration. I definitely agree with the assessment as Telecoms cannot have an inferior offering to current cable incumbents. The issue becomes, at what point does content remain a differentiator and at what price is that content still worth purchasing? There have been numerous US-based IPTV providers announcing expansions of VOD libraries or increased HD offerings just as European IPTV providers have announced rights to sports such as soccer. At some point, these triple play offerings start to look very similar to the end customer which essentially makes a premium offering of video commoditized. We have already seen downward price pressures on the bundles in certain US markets were competition exists with a cable incumbent and Telecom IPTV entrant. This further skews an already difficult business case for IPTV while hampering the ability to pay additional content premiums.
In my opinion, content is part of the “table stakes” offering. Creating compelling experiences that span multiple channels such as broadband, video and mobile will be a true differentiator. This is one of the reasons that we at Infosys have been investing in research projects for personal virtual libraries, products to easily port web content to video or mobile and enabling secure handoffs between network access modes. This involves getting closer to the connected home to enable easy transfer of content between those consumption mediums so current silos of content become transparent to the customer. It is taking the taking the talk of “anytime, anywhere” content and making it a simple reality or compelling experience for the end customer. One very good and simple example is the deployment of multi-room Digital Video Recorders. This is not cross-channel, but it is cross-location in the house and does not tie the user to a particular TV. It is a great experience for the customer. The winners in the Triple Play race will build more experiences like this to differentiate their offering while using content to establish market parity.
