“Our business has managed to grow faster than the market because of the increase in digitization. Discovery’s early launch of its HD service is very important,” he says, because operators need to add value to their offerings with services like HD and VOD. “Animal Planet is looking at an HD service next year, as well as VOD, as multichannel pay-TV operators need to offer more value to consumers in order for them to move to digital. Subscribers have to pay more for digital, a new set-top-box, hence VOD services help broaden appeal to the consumer.” Asked about local programming initiatives in Japan, Gibbons said that last year Animal Planet produced Japan Dog Idol. “In a hugely fragmented market, initiatives like that aren’t just to make programming, but for a fully integrated cross-platform marketing campaign including on-line voting. This year, 100 Reasons why Cats are Cute would work much better for a Japanese audience than The Ultimate Guide to Cats.” Gibbons admits that growth of the higher ARPU multichannel business has been slow. “(We will see if) companies can speed up that growth – by offering retransmission services of digital terrestrial or merging content business with mobile business, once the mobile spectrum comes up for allocation (after the analog switch-off).” He is more optimistic about VOD and SVOD services as there is “too much uncertainty about the mobile spectrum at the moment.” Fox’s Koizumi says that growth of non-linear on-demand services are still slow, “Though many new service and players are entering this sector. Consolidation of channels / players is also still slow but expected to accelerate in one to two years’ time as market growth flattens.” Koizumi is obviously optimistic about BS however. “There is a need and expectation for stronger players entering the BS market to form winning groups and to lead the market towards growth again. (I expect) pay-TV to grab a bigger piece of pie while FTA terrestrial weakens,” he said. “Tiering and linear / non-linear mixed new package offerings are being considered,” says Koizumi. “3D is positioned as the next hot service for both non-linear and linear TV.” Agrees Gibbons, “Both J:COM and Sky Perfect have announced they will offer some 3D services. Post Discovery’s announcement at CES, the channel will have a first mover advantage into 3D. There has been lots of interest from platforms and set operators. The initial tasks will be helping platforms to educate consumers, then 3D VOD, then a 3D channel.” TVAplus
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