IPTV is stealing pay TV subscribers as the subscription TV industry imports British industry professionals to give advice on how to capture the market.
Jeremy Darroch, CEO of British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB), will deliver a keynote speech to the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA) on March 29. BSkyB brought pay TV to Britain in 1989 and is one of the major services in the industry.
The conference is focussing on the theme of ‘content matters’ as new avenues of content distribution flood the media market from online sources.
Subscription TV providers are on the run from the influx of IPTV providers coming from every angle, from Apple and Google to the latest addition, Lenovo. Lenovo is setting up a Mobile Internet and Digital Home division to focus on creating IP-enabled TVs to support this influx of IPTV providers.
IPTV is allowing users to access content on demand from a growing section of media. One of the biggest barriers is the organisation of deals with the content distributors like Hollywood to give consumers access to the latest films, but this problem is gradually being alleviated. Intel is currently brokering deals in Australia and the US for Hollywood content delivery through its latest ‘Sandy Bridge’ processors.
Telstra has already made deals with TV manufacturers like LG and Samsung to display seven dedicated IPTV channels through BigPond TV on their IP-enabled screens.
Foxtel, the biggest player in the pay TV industry, responded to the consumer shift to IPTV by pushing more of its content onto Optus late last year, giving the partnering provider greater access to Foxtel content for its subscribers.
Optus released a job opening last year for a WebTV/IPTV operations manager as they sought to capitalise on the shifting market.
