Buying Your Internet TV From Tesco

Competition in the technologies underlying the internet TV industry is becoming overwhelming. Although demand for bandwidth is growing rapidly, prices are falling faster, and with the market's largest customers such as Google and Microsoft becoming self-sufficient, the actual size of the commercial market is not experiencing the kind of growth that the boom in HD internet TV might indicate.

Likewise, there are now hundreds of companies offering video management and video player management platforms, with Brightcove yet again lowering prices after raising them around a year ago (a clever strategy, but the market is familiar with their tricks by now).

Even the customer supply market is suffering from a glut, with retail giant Tesco now announcing that it is ending the domestic broadband provisioning market.

The result of this is that there will be the inevitable mergers, bankruptcies and price wars.

Companies like Tesco, who are used to 'piling them high and selling them cheap' will benefit, as will providers like Level 3 who own the infrastructure and can therefore underprice at will.

Differentiating is going to become more and more important and who wouldn't bet against Tesco offering Internet TV sometime in the future ? After all, they already sell the boxes, the content and now the broadband.

Back Together Again..

It was great to catch up with the team who helped build Narrowstep last night for a reunion; by now we're scattered to the four winds with Brightcove, Level 3, KIT Digital, Autonomy and, of course, TV Everywhere, all represented. More edifying for me is to see many of the former employees going out and starting their own companies and initiatives. The talent that we had at Narrowstep makes its demise even more galling.

The old studio and offices in Parsons Green Lane have become trendy flats and a supermarket, telvOS, an internet TV platform before its time, is being shelved and the bitterness at the damaged wreaked on the company by David McCourt and his team of amateur managers still hasn't ebbed.

But the knowledge, experience and friendship we built over the decade will stand us all well for the future. Perhaps we were just a little bit early to the party, but as the picture above shows, we're making up for it now!

Good Choice At ITV

Finally, finally, ITV seems to have concluded the epic soap that its search for a new top management team had become.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I've long admired John Cresswell, who thankfully remains Interim CEO and should be given the job fully. He has proven a safe pair of hands in a storm and has made many wise decisions since taking over in this role.

Archie Norman is something of a left-of-field choice for Chairman, but he has an excellent track record, does not shy from tough choices and is a businessman, not a banker; all things that count for him in my book. He is also very well regarded in the City and will probably be considered worth a punt, opening out the company's ability to fundraise and therefore expanding their strategic options in the marketplace.

ITV are still in for a very tough time and they probably need to bring in more web nous if they are to survive in the pound to pence world that British media has become.

So, what should the management team do now ?

• Sort out monetisation of the web
• Work the back catalogue
• Embrace narrowcasting
• Move into 360 media taking brands like Top Gear as a model
• Leverage its ad sales team into properties not owned by the company
• Establish a coherent distribution strategy, especially pushing Freeview

ITV has been turning out good programming whilst cutting costs and advertising is recovering, but this is a window of opportunity that won't last long.

Don't Call, Please Email...

Is there any industry on earth more dysfunctional than the mobile phone industry? Apparently Orange are about to introduce a 'high quality' premium service where you can, er, hear the person at the other end of the line as long as you pay them more money. I'm not sure if this covers all the time when you can hear nothing at all on a network...

If you visit the websites of mobile phone companies you can select phones and package based on phones, texts and call minutes, but no one I know uses phones for much more than data these days - something that's tucked into the fineprint of most mobile plans (and if my experience of Orange in central London is anything to go by, the availability of data services is patchy, to say the least, anyhow) - and I already have a mobile phone I'm happy with.

This situation is not confined to the UK by any means, as David Pogue's blog for the NY Times covers. But, equally, US customers do seem to pay less for bad service.

The mobile industry has every chance of becoming the wallet of the content industry and the remote control of the future, but the industry needs more than the current incumbents and MVOs if it is to move forward. If any industry is open to new providers who can provide a service that is acceptable to customers at even a basic level, it's the current mobile phone industry.

Recently I have sought to move away from my expired mobile contract with Orange. I've tried contacting Orange and changing my plan (apparently I'm a 'premium customer', which seems to mean paying more for their service call and helplines since I already pay them huge amounts of money, as far as I can tell), I've tried visiting Carphone Warehouse, who apparently sell contracts that no longer are available to the public, and then I tried to do likewise on a couple of online sites with no success. I tried to switch to my cable provider, but failed since they couldn't cope with my PAC code (the number that enables you to port your mobile number in the UK). Vodafone failed to clear my perfectly viable credit card (despite it being a direct debit contract).

I'm pretty convinced that the above activity, which involves giving your most intimate financial details to companies that make the Russian mafia seem like sensible institutions, will now result in pain beyond belief as they bill me for services they have failed to deliver.

I have come to the conclusion that I really must be the most stupid consumer on the face of the earth. I cannot change a simple mobile phone contract for love or money. Believe it or not I'm seriously considering getting rid of my mobile phone as a result... So please email from now on...

Confused By Clicker.com

My family only ever bought the Radio Times, the TV listings magazine issues by the BBC, at Christmas time. Back then, with four channels, it was good reading. These days it has to cram huge amounts of information onto its pages and is almost unreadable. Indeed, all printed listings suffer from the same problem.

Even online guides such as On The Box and Digiguide suffer from similar issues, although the ability to customise them makes them far more accessible.

But TV distributors suffer from the same issues and creating compelling EPGs is a real art which most broadcast distributors get horribly wrong. Still, it's far more accessible than the print equivalent.

Nothing demonstrated the difference between the internet mindset and the TV mindset more than this week's launch of Clicker.com.

The service is a confusing mess of boxes and links, suggestions and breadcrumbs. So different from a TV EPG. Unlike the excellent Locate TV, there is a real paucity of information about the programming and basic features such as 'I've seen this' which you'd expect of an interactive service are sadly missing, although I'm sure are on the roadmap. Concepts like 'Trending Episodes' don't help. Trending what ?

Clicker.com is a glorified database with an interface developed by people who live in webland, not the world where ordinary people watch TV. There's little added value and I'm amazed how the media has gotten into a frenzy over something so basic and so poor.

Pass the TV Guide...

The Eyeballs Have It

If there's one theme that's evolving from the flurry of announcements in the internet TV business this week, it's that the power lies with the entity controlling the eyeballs.

The launch of Clicker.com sees the 'discovery' based business models originated by companies such as Blinkx and Locate TV reach maturity.

At the same time, Roku has announced a 'channel store' - a model not dissimilar, in fact, to the way that traditional carriers operate - charging a premium for more prominent EPG slots.

With screen manufacturers becoming content owners and Hulu and SeeSaw about to launch in the UK, the battle for the eyeballs has started..

Capturing Web Video

We're often asked about the best way to capture video from the internet. Loading a web page in the Real Player is one way to do this, and another option is to use Applian's software.

But, be legal !

Who Benefits From Sports On TV ?

As the UK Government takes revenge on Murdoch's sprawling media empire by listing the cricket Ashes competition so that it has to be shown on terrestrial TV, it's worth looking at the contention that TV benefits sports.

Here are figures for football from the 07/08 season in the Premiership:

£2bn overall revenues

£1.3bn from broadcasting

£1.2bn paid in salaries

The only logical conclusion that I can come to is that Sky hugely benefits around 500 footballers.

Removing them from the equation would save the rest of us schmucks £30 a month...

ITV Do The Hulu

Reports that ITV are set to take a significant stake in Hulu UK is another indication that the interim management are doing a good job: this is a good hedging move, albeit they should look out for the influence of an American parent, who are prone to run roughshod over minority overseas shareholders given half a chance. It's also smart for Hulu, since the UK is a very different media market to the US.

It also begs the question, why are they looking further than John Cresswell for their new CEO ? The reluctance of companies to promote from within is a curious phenomenon. I do hope that the new Chairman will see the light of day and quickly give his backing to the team who are already steering ITV in the right direction.

Video Fingerprinting

As companies move away from heavy handed DRM, the ability to measure and record rights usage has become more important. Live online video service Justin.tv has teamed up with Vobile to introduce fingerprint recognition technology that checks the live streams on the service against a database of protected rights supplied by companies such as Fox.

Video recognition and matching is something of a holy grail both for discover (search) and for rights protection so if this rollout proves effective it would be a serious leap forward for the delivery of online video.

Time For Media Reform In The UK

Once upon a time a media mogul could make or break a government. Indeed, the UK's most widely rad newspaper, the semi-pornographic 'The Sun' was often credited with winning elections.

With one man, Rupert Murdoch, essentially controlling the UK's only satellite broadcaster with nearly 10 million homes, more than a third of UK homes, (and therefore controlling pretty much all sports coverage in the UK), and also the top 'broadsheet' (The Times) and the top tabloid (The Sun), his recent decision to back the Conservative party since will reform his only serious competition (the BBC) has resulted in a barrage of side on fire from his various properties (his 36% control of BSkyB is absolute despite being a minority, but gets around competition rules). It should be pointed out that BSkyB also controls a significant minority of the UK's largest commercial broadcaster, ITV, although it is meant to be selling this stake.

But Murdoch has been losing his touch of late, as we've chronicled on this blog. His understanding of the x 2.0 world is non-existent.

Now, this is showing even in his editorial line. Using The Sun he has run a campaign against the luckless UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, senselessly using the mother of a casualty from the Afghan War as a vehicle. It would have made Hearst blush.

The outcome has again drawn serious questions over the BBC's news coverage and has certainly backfired on the proponent.

Whilst, there is no doubt that the BBC needs reforming, the increasingly powerful media monopolies run by NewsCorp and Google need to be factored into a fundamental review of British media.

Gordon Brown, for all his failings, is probably too ethical to take direct revenge on the obnoxious Sun and its immoral owner, but, for once in his life, he should be decisive and strike back. Next to health, defence and other social issues, the media is often a footnote, but the tail is seriously wagging the dog in the UK at present.