Convergence of TV and Internet Services

Its 8 pm, you are on your way home after a hectic day at office. You are anxiously waiting for the bus to show up, so that you do not miss that crucial world cup match. Chances are - either the bus is overly packed with commuters and you wait your turn for the next one, or the buses are not on time for the umpteenth time. In either case you have no choice but to miss your game. Yet another time, you end up catching the highlights and missing those exciting moments of watching a live match with your friends. Now picture this scenario - yet another match, and you are at the bus stop. This time you do not worry about the bus being packed or being late. You simply take out your Smartphone, get the Wi-Fi in place and connect to your favourite sports channel. Voila - Game on! Hang – on – while some technologically leading markets have already developed this service, we have not yet reached there.

Despite the crisis that swept the entire media & entertainment industry, and especially the television industry, since it draws majority of the revenues from advertising models than subscription models, the Pay-TV segment is enjoying a relatively stable position in the market. The marketability of content today is done in ways to create a new value proposition and to differentiate content offerings. Competition, mainly from the internet world, is slowly, but steadily opening up. Television viewing is undergoing a major change where it is characterized by migration to the Internet. The rapidly changing consumption patterns such as mobile or pay-per-view pose a real threat to the Pay TV operators.

Today, as the laptops, Smartphone’s and tablets become a common place, the viewing habits of consumers have shifted drastically. In what seems to be an unavoidable trend, the TV content is opening up to the web interfaces. Google TV, Apple TV etc. are perfect examples of products involved in merging TV and internet into a single screen and experience (Not to forget Roku, Boxee, and Vudu). Google and Apple are global phenomena with a hell lot of eyeballs, more than any of the Pay TV operating services. With just a click of a button, you can seamlessly search for your TV contents, easily switch between TV and web without actually having to change any input channels and access a vast catalog of contents.

So what makes a good digital content a great content? What gives the consumers the incentive to reach out to their web or the television set each time? The key to understand here would be to see how companies can unlock these questions to come with compelling strategies to compete with vast content libraries, compelling on-demand services and the relatively low pricing offers. No doubt that the underlying drivers behind these opportunity lay the network transformation and other market opportunities - OS-based Smartphone’s, Diversity of communications (p2p, smart grids etc.), trend towards flatter networks, next generation services (analytics, content, security, e-commerce etc.) and new monetization methods. The evolution of new consumption patterns and the freely available contents pose a major threat to the Pay TV segments, and sooner or later they will have to adapt their strategic positioning to strengthen their brand image and attractiveness to consumers. The way we are watching TV today is evolving, and so must Pay TV operators...