26 November, 2013 – Telcos and cable operators are investing heavily in their networks to upgrade their subscribers to bundles (triple-play or double-play). These operators will reap the rewards of this investment as total subscription revenues (pay TV (including on-demand), broadband and fixed-line telephony) will increase by 65% from $124 billion in 2012 to $205 billion in 2018, according to the Triple-Play Forecasts report from Digital TV Research.

Covering 97 countries, triple-play subscription revenues will reach $144 billion in 2018, up by $80 billion on the 2012 total. Triple-play revenues will command 70% of total subscription revenues by 2018, up from 52% in 2012 and 36% in 2008.

Read more at Digital TV Research

Brussels, 18 November – The capacity of television to engage audiences in critical issues will be recognized on 21 November as part of a United Nations led initiative supported by public service and commercial broadcasters, sales houses, as well as trade associations around the world.

In a world first, key industry bodies including the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) and egta, the Brussels based association of television and radio sales houses will unite for World Television Day, which was proclaimed an annual event by the United Nations in 1996.

Broadcasters everywhere have been invited to screen a brief video commissioned by egta, ACT and EBU in recognition of TV’s crucial role to inform, educate and entertain.

The clip features people of all ages and nationalities watching television content on different devices, ranging from entertainment to news, to culture, education and drama. Broadcasters across Europe, Asia, Canada, USA and Australia will participate.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki Moon says in a digital age, TV remains the most trusted and popular medium for news, culture, sports and entertainment. Europeans watch more linear television than ever before – an average of 235 minutes per day.

“Television helps bring the world to people’s lives and living rooms,” he said. “Through quality programming, television sheds light on global issues and opens windows of understanding on the struggles and hopes of communities and families everywhere.”

EBU president and general administrator of Belgian public service broadcaster RTBF, Jean-Paul Philippot said TV remained ‘the dominant platform for live events,’ despite the rise of social media and the more personalised consumption of media via the internet.

“TV is, and shall remain the medium par excellence for people to simultaneously share their emotions and participate in seminal events,” said Mr Philippot. “It was the medium that took us to the moon and it will continue to inspire us today and in the future.”

Philippe Delusinne, ACT President and CEO RTL Belgium, said that “television’s success story is built on proximity to our audience, local relevance and telling great stories”.

“TV is constantly evolving with one major goal: we want viewers to be the big winners of this technological evolution,” he said. “In the end, new technology means more ways to watch TV: what you want, when you want and on whatever screen you want. Thousands of talented people work in television, backstage or on screen to continue this success. It’s an honour to be part of this media family.”

Franz Prenner, egta President and Head of Research at ORF Enterprise Austria, expressed praise for a medium, which he said ‘repeatedly demonstrated its capacity for reinvention.’

“These are exciting times both for broadcasters,” he said, “who are innovating in the way they deliver television content to viewers, and for their sales houses, who contribute to the financing of great content through ever more informative, targeted and relevant advertising.”

***

NOTE TO EDITORS

• World Television Day website: www.worldtelevisionday.tv, Twitter: @WorldTVDay
• We have asked prominent personalities from politics, sports, media and culture about their experiences of television. Among them you will find:
  • Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth: “While the digital revolution has empowered individuals with an unprecedented diversity of communication tools, television remains the most powerful medium of all. It allows people – of all ages and backgrounds – to easily share information, views and emotions. Television has a key role to play in education, and it enables viewers to enjoy the richness of our cultural diversity, contributing to a more creative Europe.”
  • Bonnie Tyler, Welsh singer, songwriter, businesswoman and active philanthropist: “TV is now the greatest cultural influence in the world. It crosses all human boundaries and has the capacity to bring people together, when used in a positive way, li e no other medium. I love to watch TV wherever I am in the world and never cease to be both entertained and informed by it.”
  • Niki Lauda, Austrian Formula One racing driver, three time World Champion: “The fact that I report as an expert for RTL live from the race course already shows that I attach great importance to the medium of television. Few people have had the opportunity to even sit once in a Formula 1 car as I have. Thanks to television, millions of people have the chance to be part of the action and to celebrate victories with us.”
  • Visit the website for more testimonials: www.worldtelevisionday.tv/testimonials/
• World TV Day video clip: http://www.worldtelevisionday.tv/video-love-tv-21112013/

PRESS CONTACTS:

Ross Biggam, Director General ACT
T +32 27 38 76 13
M +32 477 407 733
E rb@acte.be

The Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) represents the interests of the commercial broadcasting sector in Europe. Formed in 1989, the ACT has 33 member companies licensed in 37 different European countries and distributed across 45 European markets and beyond. Our members operate several hundred free-to-air and pay-tv channels and distribute many more channels and new services. The ACT members encompass several business models: free-to-air broadcasters and pay-TV players, digital platform operators and multimedia groups. See www.acte.be, Twitter: @ACT_eu.

Matthew Trustram, Project Manager, EUROVISION TV Unit
T +41(0) 22 717 26 23
E trustram@ebu.ch

Sue Neilen, Senior Communications Officer EBU
+41 (0)22 717 2203 M +41 (0)79 376 4920
E neilen@ebu.ch

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is the world’s foremost alliance of public service media organizations, with Members in 56 countries in Europe and beyond.
The EBU’s mission is to defend the interests of public service media and to promote their indispensable contribution to modern society. It is the point of reference for industry knowledge and expertise. The EBU operates EUROVISION and EURORADIO. EUROVISION is the media industry’s premier distributor and producer of top quality live sport and news, as well as entertainment, culture and music content. EURORADIO enhances public service radio through the exchange of music, professional networking and the promotion of digital and hybrid radio – to ensure radio remains a key protagonist in a multimedia world. web: www.ebu.ch – twitter: @EBU_Eurovision @Euroradio_EBU

Katty Roberfroid, egta
T +32 2 290 31 31
E katty.roberfroid@egta.com

Anne-Laure Dreyfus, egta
T +32 2 290 31 34
E annelaure.dreyfus@egta.com

egta is the association representing television and radio sales houses, either independent from the channel or in-house, that market the advertising space of both private and public television and radio stations throughout Europe and beyond. egta fulfils different functions for its members in fields of activities as diversified as regulatory issues, audience measurement, sales methods, interactivity, cross-media, technical standards, new media etc. During its 35 years of existence, egta has become the reference centre for television & radio advertising in Europe. egta counts 129 members operating across 38 countries.

TDSAT on Monday started hearing arguments related to 12-minute cap on advertising in an hour imposed by Trai

Nov 12 2013, New Delhi: India’s telecom regulator has no authority to limit the number of advertisements carried by TV channels, the lawyer of a grouping of news channels told the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), which, on Monday, started hearing arguments related to the 12-minute cap on advertising in an hour of programming imposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

Appearing for the appellants, including the News Broadcasters Association, Supreme Court advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi termed Trai an “interloper” and argued that it did not have the power to regulate content on TV. He described advertisements as “a cornerstone of our economy” and a manifestation of free speech.

Read more at Live Mint

Let’s not try to fool ourselves, illegal downloading is just plain theft

AUSTRALIANS love good movies and TV shows, but are we loving them to death?

I am ashamed to say that if the figures from the final episode of the television series Breaking Bad are correct, then per capita Australians are the highest illegal downloaders of pirated material in the world.

And let’s not try to lay the blame on the lack of availability of legal content; the episode was available for download on iTunes for the price of a cup of coffee a few hours after it was televised in the US.

To save Australia’s creative talent we urgently need national legislative reform to stop online piracy, which is eating away at our creative industries.

As the outgoing chairman of the National Association of Cinema Operators, during the past three years I have had the privilege of getting to know the hard-working Australians who produce, distribute and exhibit the movies we all enjoy. My involvement with the cinema industry has also brought me face to face with the damaging effects of content theft, illegal downloading and copyright infringement.

I recently opened the Australian International Movie Convention and found myself in full agreement with an old University of Queensland law school colleague and now Attorney-General, George Brandis. He commented in his keynote address that an ”effective legal framework of protection and enforcement of copyright is fundamental to sustaining today’s creative content industry and, importantly, the cultural development of our nation”.

As Australia becomes increasingly dependent on the ”knowledge economy”, we have to protect and support the 900,000 people who work within our copyright industry from the scourge that is eating away at their jobs — intellectual property theft.

Let me strip away the well-honed myths about the piracy websites Australians visit to download such illegal content.

To begin with, illegal downloading is just online theft; it is that simple.

Second, research from the University of Ballarat found the most profitable advertising on piracy websites comes from the sex industry, gambling and malware ads. This very lucrative advertising provides the financial incentive for overseas criminals to operate these websites and become abhorrently wealthy.

These operators are not concerned about freedom of speech or protecting the ”freedom of the internet”, nor are they in the business to promote innovation. It’s all about money. The 2009 criminal trial of The Pirate Bay found that the site’s overheads were an estimated $110,000, yet the owners made more than $1.4 million from advertising revenues alone. An illegal profit margin of 1272 per cent — which would make it more profitable than drug-dealing.

Australia’s creative industry supports a “free and open internet”, that is, an internet that is politically and economically free, operating as part of a competitive free market but where people have rights. The creative industry is also utterly committed to and supportive of free speech. In fact, it is dependent on it.

However, there is a marked difference between a free and open internet on the one hand and artists and industry employees being forced to work for free because of online theft. Creative Australians are entitled to protect and profit from their skills; after all it is their intellectual property.

An internet where individuals can freeload by taking the creation or product of others without permission or payment will result in dire economic and social consequences. Australia will lose tomorrow’s creative brains, together with our talented actors and singers.

If online piracy is allowed to control distribution of content, creative Australian businesses will be destroyed and jobs will be lost.

Respecting the rule of law online will not break the internet, stifle innovation, limit free speech or deter the free flow of information. Yet disrespecting and ignoring the rule of law will take away the incentive for investment and innovation that are key pillars of economic growth and progress.

We cannot stand by and watch value being eroded from this important industry. The creative industry’s ability to use the internet to get a reasonable return on its substantial ongoing investment impacts the opportunities to continue releasing quality entertainment content. Like any other business, if a product doesn’t produce a return on its investment — in this case as a result of rampant piracy — fewer investors will be prepared to risk funding movies such as the next Red Dog or the next Sapphires; nor will the next Sam Worthington or Mia Wasikowska be discovered.

As access to online pirated content became easier, sadly an expectation of getting something for nothing came with it; it’s an unfortunate by-product of the internet era that has started to devalue entertainment products.

Defining commercial entertainment as merely ”information” is both a first step in devaluing such products, as well as a convenient excuse to rationalise online theft.
Unfortunately, when it comes to protecting our $93 billion copyright industry, its $7bn in exports and the 900,000 people the industry employs, Australia is falling behind.

Full text available at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/internet-pirates-steal-the-treasure-of-the-talented/story-e6frg6zo-1226756027922#mm-premium?sv=bffa3878bfd5fe9d928fcd24900af4a2
PETER BEATTIE
9 November 2013
The Australian
© 2013 News Limited. All rights reserved.

Peter Beattie is the outgoing Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Cinema Operators-Australasia (NACO). He was Premier of the state of Queensland from 1998 to 2007.

16 October, 2013 – Global online TV and video revenues (over fixed broadband networks) will reach $34.99 billion in 2018, a massive increase from the $3.98 billion recorded in 2010 and the $15.94 billion expected in 2013, according to the Online TV and Video Forecasts report from Digital TV Research. By 2018, 520 million homes in 40 countries will watch online television and video (both paid-for and ad-supported), up from 182 million in 2010.

The OTT [over-the-top] TV sector is on the brink of a huge take-off as the key players expand internationally, broadband penetration increases, technology advances and as new partnerships are announced on a daily basis.

Online TV and video advertising has been the key driver for the OTT sector, with revenues of $7.4 billion expected in 2013, up from $2.4 billion in 2010. Rapid advertising expenditure growth will continue, to reach a global total of $16.4 billion in 2018. However, advertising’s share of total OTT revenues will fall from 60.6% in 2010 to 46.9% in 2018.

The fastest growing paid-for OTT revenue stream will be subscription services. Although the likes of Netflix and Hulu Plus are already reasonably well established as streaming subscription services in North America, international markets have been relatively untouched – until now.

Online television and video subscription revenues (SVOD) will soar from $1 billion in 2010 to $6 billion in 2013 and onto $13 billion in 2018. The number of homes paying a monthly fee to receive SVOD packages will climb from 21.9 million in 2010 to 67.8 million by end-2013 and onto 160.6 million in 2018.

Read more at Digital TV Research

(Oct 9, 2013) How do you say “chutzpah” in Chinese? Future TV is one of seven firms licensed to stream content into Chinese homes via the Internet to set-top boxes and smart TVs. (“Over-the-top” refers to video delivered outside of a cable or satellite service.) It claims to offer 1.5 million hours of content, of which half is high-definition. But among U.S. studios it is notorious for uploading hundreds of copyrighted movies and evading tens of millions of dollars in licensing fees. Chinese production houses also say they’re being cheated. “If you ask anyone in China they’ll tell you Future TV is a pirate,” says a U.S. studio executive in Beijing.

Read more at Forbes

09 October, 2013 – The number of TV sets connected to the Internet will reach 759 million by 2018 for 40 countries covered in the Connected TV Forecasts report, up from 115 million at end-2010 and the 307 million expected at end-2013. This translates to 26.8% of global TV sets by 2018, up from only 5.1% at end-2010 and 12.4% by end-2013.

Connected TV is becoming more international. The US will still command a third of connected TV sets by end-2013, but this proportion will fall to 23.5% by 2018. China will climb from 6.6% of the 2013 total to 16.4% by 2018.

Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Connected TV is undergoing the largest upheaval in its short history. The introduction of affordable devices such as Google’s Chromecast and Sky’s Now TV are shaking up the market, with connected TV set manufacturers already reducing their prices as a reaction to this increased rivalry. The introduction of three next-generation games consoles adds further competition.”

Chromecast and similar products are likely to have a considerable impact. The global total of connected TV sets via streaming/retail settop boxes will reach 126 million in 2018, up from only 4 million in 2010. The 34 million expected by end-2013 is double the 2012 total.

The number of installed smart TV sets will overtake games consoles connected to the web during 2013. Smart TV sets will account for 34% of the 2018 total connected sets, or 259 million. There were 31 million installed smart TV sets by end-2010, and this total will rocket to 110 million by end-2013.

Pay TV operators also want a slice of the action. Although it is yet to take off too much (with Liberty Global/UPC experiencing mixed results so far for its Horizon box), connected TV via the pay TV settop box has plenty of potential as operators strive to retain their subscribers. So, from humble beginnings, there will be 117 million sets accessing the Internet via the pay TV settop box by end-2018.

Despite limited take-up so far, blu-ray players will be important in the connected TV expansion, with 81 million connections forecast by 2018 – or nearly double the end-2013 total.

Read more at Digital TV Research

(Sept 29, 2013) Detailed resource conducted by the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation shows that 24 percent of kids aged between 12 and 17 are active pirates, with the level of piracy activity increasing with age.
Almost one third of those aged 16-17 admit to downloading illegal files on a regular basis.

But perhaps more alarming for parents is the fact kids are exposing themselves to hard-core porn and offshore gambling enticements in their relentless pursuit of illegal downloads.

The vast majority of the teenagers surveyed confirmed they had viewed graphic sex industry advertisement and gambling pop-ups while accessing pirated content.

Lori Flekser, Executive Director of IPAF, said the research showed that most teenagers failed to understand the direct impact illegally downloading movies and TV series had on the entertainment industry.

Read more at NEWS.com.au

To read the IPAF media release and full IPAF research summary, click here

 

Younger demos are most likely to combine pay TV subscriptions with SVOD services, according to new study from PwC

9/25/2013 – In a wide-ranging study of video consumption, PwC has found that widely reported cord-cutting among younger people has been significantly overstated but that many consumers are avid users of over-the-top content and that second screen behavior has become widespread, with around 55% interacting with mobile devices while watching TV.

The survey found that traditional pay TV subscriptions remain valuable to most consumers, with 70% of respondents subscribing to cable services and 26% saying they had satellite subscription.

Read more at Broadcasting & Cable