angacom_anga 29/05/2015 13:14 Page 8
Connected TVs drive
OTT surge
indings from Juniper Research
indicate that subscriber
numbers to ‘over-the-top’
(OTT) TV services such as Netflix and
Amazon Prime will increase from
92.1m in 2014, to 332.2m globally by
2019.
Continued growth in the North
American market will see it remain
as the leading region in terms of
subscriber numbers, but closely
followed by the Far East, as this
region emerges with new services and
increased consumer interest.
In its latest research, Mobile and
Online TV & Video: OTT, IPTV and
Connected Markets 2015-2019,
Juniper found that consumers will
favour connected TVs as their primary
screen, especially when one considers the
trend for watching long-form video on OTT
subscription services.
The research observed that with the long
lifecycle of TV’s, previously ‘dumb’ TVs will
see an upsurge in becoming ‘connected’ due
to the cost-effectiveness of devices such as
Chromecast, and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, as
well as the high uptake of games consoles
and STBs which provide preloaded services.
This is in contrast to Smart TVs which
currently offer poor operating systems and
user interfaces, suggests Juniper Research.
F
Altice: “Wasn’t ready for
Time Warner Cable deal”
Patrick Drahi, the billionaire
owner of European telecoms
group Altice, has admitted the
company didn’t bid for Time
Warner Cable because it lacked
the management resources to
digest such a big deal in a market
it had only recently entered. “I
didn’t follow up on the exchanges
we had on Time Warner Cable
that were mentioned in the media
because we were not ready,”
Drahi told a French parliamentary
hearing.
Drahi met with TWC chief
executive Robert Marcus to discuss
a potential deal, but decided not to
move ahead despite having finance
lined up. Instead, third-ranked cable
group Charter Communications,
14 ADVANCED-TELEVISION.COM
Traditional service providers cannot
afford to cower behind the sofa. For
example, the threat from OTT services has
notably forced Verizon’s hand into bundling
cheaper packages, minus sports channels.
This has led to incumbents arguing
amongst
OTT and ‘skinny’
bundles stave off
cord-cutting
T
he global pay-TV services market,
including cable TV, satellite TV,
telco TV and OTT video, totalled
$237 billion in 2014, up 7% from the
previous year, according to the 2015 IHS
Infonetics Pay-TV Services and
Subscribers report.
“In a growing number of pay-TV
markets, service providers are expanding
market presence by offering their own OTT
video services, primarily as apps on tablets
and third-party OTT media servers. Dish
Networks, the second-largest satellite
provider in the US, is offering an OTT video
service called Sling TV that’s aimed
themselves,
as well as enraging the sports TV
providers ESPN and Fox Sports. Meanwhile,
OTT players continue to strengthen their
market position.
Other key findings include:
l Ad spend on ‘Video on Demand’ is to
grow almost fourfold by 2019, with the
Far East and China dominating the
market by the end of the forecast period.
l IPTV subscriber numbers are forecast
to grow by over 70% between 2014 and
2019.
backed by John Malone, agreed a
$79 billion deal to acquire TWC.
Drahi defended his decision
saying the previously announced
purchase of US regional cable firm
Suddenlink Communications for
$9.1 billion was a “modest” way for
Altice to enter the US market and
test its ability there. He suggested
that buying TWC would have been a
step too far, too fast, quadrupling
the number of US employees of
Altice companies to nearly 120,000
in a market it barely knew.
According to Drahi, time is on
Altice’s side for the lat \