media tablets business today new revenues.
Inevitably, when one thinks of making money from TV, Rupert Murdoch’s name crops up and despite a general reputation for lack of interest in all things digital, the guy seems to be a huge fan of the iPad. Sometime towards the end of January 2011 or early February 2011, News Corp and Apple will announce an iPad-based collaboration called The Daily. Murdoch has reportedly called this News Corp’s most exciting prospect and it’s not hard to see why: it will offer an electronic newspaper to iPad users who are thought to be at the vanguard of those who shun traditional newspapers.
The details of The Daily are not known for sure as IBE went to press but you can be sure of this: there is a definite business model at play. One only has to look at what News Corp has done with the online propositions of some of the leading newspapers it owns which have put content behind pay walls. Will video be involved sooner or later in this project? Almost certainly. Will this be paid for content? Ditto. Don’t forget that The Daily is a meeting of minds between two companies who are hugely successful in monetising the content - News Corp and its TV estates and Apple with iTunes.
This won’t be News Corp’s first foray into paid for iPad content and the business model of the SkySports app is a great example of how important the corporation regards the tablet platform. In June 2010, Sky launched an iPad mobile TV app to complement its relatively successful iPhone equivalent, which offered access to all Sky Sports channels and Sky News, to take advantage of the increased screen size offered by the tablet. Yet the launch was accompanied by a lot of grumbling about pricing.
Subscription to Sky Mobile TV for iPad was pitched at £6 a month for existing Sky TV and Sky Player TV customers who take Sky Sports and £35 a month for all other customers (both Sky and non-Sky TV). The iPhone version cost £6 per month. Bear this in mind when The Daily arrives.
Other TV operators have not been slow to see the potential. Just before CES, US cable TV MSO Comcast announced plans to enable sometime in 2011 in-home streaming for live and on demand content on the iPad as well as on Android-based tablets to its paying subscribers. Realising that such a service could help it fend off any cord-cutting, cord-shaving or just churn in general, the MSO enhanced its Xfinity TV iPad App to offer a ‘play now’ capability plus additional features that transform any computer into a search engine and remote control. “Live streaming and the ‘play now’ feature on our Xfinity TV app are two important pieces of our strategy to deliver any content to any device, any time,” insisted Brian L. Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation. “Comcast has a series of upcoming online enhancements and app releases that are part of a much larger effort to reinvent how customers interact with their entertainment on TV, online and on mobile devices.”
Other operators are either rushing or have already followed suit. Eyeing up a market keen to devour video content on tablets, MobiTV launched at CES, with a noticeable lack of fanfare it has to be said, MobiNOW for the iPhone and iPad. The service is based on a dual-mode business model: an initial free download with an introductory set of content including news clips from Associated Press, FOX News, FOX Business and The Weather Channel; a full monthly
Display technology analyst iSuppli predicts that global tablet shipments will more than triple in 2011, reaching 57.6 million units, with Apple
claiming nearly two- thirds of devices.
subscription version with full shows from PBS KIDS, TLC, The History Channel, Lifetime, A&E, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, LIVE FOX News and FOX Business, multiple channels of music videos and more. Ray DeRenzo, the company’s CMO, MobiTV, describing how the new devices would be utilised and the business models at play, said: “The iPad, and tablets in general, scream out to video as the ‘killer application’… To date, the biggest hurdle in terms of video on tablets is not technical but commercial. Broadcasters and media companies are a bit perplexed in how they view tablets from a rights and distribution perspective. Are tablets mobile devices? Broadband connected PCs? Small TV receivers? How you answer that question will determine the cost/value you ascribe to your content on tablets.”
And there it is in nutshell: the cost ascribed. Many end users have become far too accustomed to getting content for free over Wi-Fi and OTT services but going forward this makes no business sense whatsoever. The advent of portable media tablets, which are just TVs to walk around with, will be accompanied by a commensurate evolution in paid-for content models. For the TV industry, tablets will not be a bitter pill to swallow.
www.ibeweb.com l january/february 2011 l ibe l 7
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