Clueless over IPTV?
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 A survey of 6,000 consumers across the United States, UK, France, Germany and Spain found almost half of the respondents had no idea what Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) means. The term refers to the delivery of broadcast-quality digital television over an internet-enabled phone network. Basically, with IPTV, consumers will receive video, voice or data on their sets in a way that will allow them to pick and choose what they watch and interact with their television more than ever before. This is achieved by using a two-way digital broadcast signal sent through a switched telephone or cable network by way of a broadband connection. At the consumer end, a set-top box is programmed with software which processes information sent by the consumer as to viewing preferences.
Despite not being able to recognize the term IPTV, the participants in the survey conducted by Accenture revealed high interest in what it has to offer. When asked how they would improve television in the future, the top answer (30 percent of respondents) was “having access to a large number of movies,” followed by “being able to create your own channel to watch programs whenever you want," selected by 26 percent. When questioned as to the perceived benefits of subscribing to a service like IPTV, being subjected to less advertising was seen as the most popular advantage by 55 percent of respondents, while 47 percent cited the ability to choose specialized programs. For advertisers, IPTV offers a golden opportunity to revolutionize the industry and engage viewers in a directly addressable manner. Even though viewers have been handed ways to skip TV advertisements in recent years (by using TiVos or other personal video recorders (PVRs), research for Sky found that, in households with PVRs, the advertising message was received to the same degree as those without. This led to the conclusion that making advertising relevant is crucial to eliciting a consumer response. With IPTV, two viewers watching the exact same IPTV channel could be targeted with entirely different ads based on behavioral information or demographics gleaned from the bi-directional nature of IPTV. One company, Packet Vision, has created a one-box solution to enable highly targeted advertising to take place. Its ‘pizza box’ style enclosure features a media server, splicer, playout router and management system and fits inside the network meaning that nothing needs to be changed at the consumers’ end at all.
Packet Vision sees addressable IPTV advertising as an “extremely exciting concept,” given the estimated worth of the global TV advertising market at $410 billion a year. The number of IPTV subscribers in Europe alone is predicted to rise from the current 658,000 to 8.7 million by 2009, according to a recent report by Screen Digest. Another report by market research firm Informa Telecoms & Media puts the global number of IPTV subscribers by the end of this year at 2.7 million and predicts the number will reach 25.9 million by the end of 2010.
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