A very interesting report has been published by ericsson about the changing viewing choices, behaviours and preferences of consumers.
The full report can be downloaded here. It is quite concise for a report.
Videonet has published some of the interesting findings in an article. It makes a leap by stating that only one to two content aggregators will be able to supply the user. But in a family that may be two (or three) per person; some of it may be free or advertising sponsored content. It does notice the diveriging viewing behaviour: away from a single programme per family to multi-viewing in the same room. Exactly that is what is happening in my home as well. Content discovery is quickly diverging also – this is a crucial development. This report is an interesting measuring point in a field that is quickly evolving. This will move faster and faster as 2nd screen personalized viewing will become the norm (whereas now it is still a clear minority).
There is now a clear trend that linear TV is clearly preferred for “live” events. I.e. VOD is better for the rest. This will have a huge impact in the industry. I.e. Netflix will win hands down from all multi-channel offers.
SVOD is clearly a winner over T-VOD. T-VOD will remain an option only for heavily promoted premium content. Maybe a T-VOD type should be offered that increases the bill as you watch the content to the end; content should simply promote itself. A 2 hour movie; 1 hour for free, and 2 euro for each half hour after that. With TV series first episodes could be for free etc.
Plain old TV watching is the killer app. Low on the list of must have are the typical interactive TV features; but they have been presented far too abstractly. This is not representative of their potential. But in the end: we should not overestimate it. The killer interactive app is VOD / catchupTV; everything else pales in comparison.
