Industry analyst Lluis Borrell from Spanish telecoms consultancy Analysys Mason has predicted that IP is set to have a huge impact on the European TV market, with a third of revenues coming from IPTV in a decade.
Speaking at a conference session on ‘Multichannel Broadcasters: Is IP really having an impact on broadcasting?’ [15 September] Borrell predicted that in a €91 billion European TV market IP services could make up a huge €30 billion in just a decade.
“A 30 per cent switch to the delivery of services over IP is a huge change. The big question is how will that impact the market?”
Borrell said that there would be a big sea change in the competitive dynamics of the TV market, driven by the large number of service launches based around VoD and
catch-up over OTT.
He listed developments such as the launch of Molotov TV in France, YouTube TV, Amazon Channels, iFlix Live TV and Disney going direct to consumers as evidence of the diversity of the latest crop of OTT offers.
Another big market trend is fragmentation, added Borrell, who pointed out that not all consumers want the same thing from TV services and that IP is the best suited technology for delivering a wide range of services to audiences – some of whom want niche services and some who want all-you-can-eat buffets.
“The market is evolving and becoming more segmented and IPTV is best suited to coping with the different tastes of consumers, who are eager for attractive new seamless TV and VoD offers.
“Overall the trends for the TV market is strong with demand for video increasing. But the nature of that demand is changing.
“In terms of distribution of video, IP-only and hybrid models are the ones which are likely to prevail – because they are based on OTT technology which is available and scalable.”
