TV Everywhere Allows TV Distributors to Capitalize on Subscriber Potential

Next Generation Communications Blog

TV Everywhere Allows TV Distributors to Capitalize on Subscriber Potential

By Susan Campbell

Can you image a world with TV Everywhere? This concept goes beyond televisions made available in your favorite restaurants and bars. Instead, TV Everywhere is a concept that allows you to access your favorite TV content on any screen, at any time and from any location. Alcatel-Lucent is working to make this a reality.

TV Everywhere is an initiative launched by Comcast and Time Warner designed to enable existing TV subscribers to watch their preferred television content online and on-demand without any additional cost. Still in its early stages, this platform has the potential to fundamentally change the way we consume television content. The impact will be global, with similar initiatives emerging in Europe, and the scope will extend to mobile devices.

There are a number of different elements that are driving TVE for television distributors. While these companies are facing decreasing profit margins, they also need revenue protection. In North America alone, the average monthly TV subscription was roughly $50 per household, and remains the primary revenue source for TV distributors. These companies have also spent billions to transform their network infrastructure to support broadband Internet services and this investment needs to be protected.

In a wireless world, service providers need to be focused on subscriber relations as subscriber acquisition costs can be considerable and can represent billions of sunk cost for Tier 1 network providers. The driving demand for multi-screen capabilities can help with broadband revenue creation. By providing free online access to TVE content, subscribers will be compelled to upgrade their broadband access service to a higher tier.

There is a considerable threat from over-the-top Internet television for traditional TV distributors. TV Everywhere protects the existing television business models, while also establishing motivation for subscribers to remain loyal. And, because it is open and non-exclusive, other distributors can enter into similar agreements with other programmers.

Content producers can also benefit from TVE as it allows them to leverage the power of the Internet, multimedia PCs and net TVs; ensure the value of the content is preserved and monetized; enable a lateral, nonlinear viewing experience; retain and reward existing subscribers while up-selling existing content; extract more content revenues more easily; and build on an existing, proven business model.

To enable the delivery of TVE, distributors need to work with a company like Alcatel-Lucent to build out an end-to-end 4G LTE solution. Alcatel-Lucent can provide the backbone and expertise necessary to transform the network so that distributors can readily support TVE and capitalize on the content demand in the global market.

 



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