At this year’s TelcoTV, the concept of TV Everywhere was big. While many are looking to the major cablecos and telcos to develop a business model that they can emulate, there’s a pervasive worry that the end result won’t live up to its hype. Lessons and innovations in this space can be easily applied to other services trying to deliver TV content on the Web and those putting Web content on the TV set.
TV Everywhere is used as a buzz word or a concept by most – even the big players – and no longer refers to a specific product from the likes of Time Warner Cable or Comcast whose system is going to be called Comcast On Demand Online.
The service is a way to get the premium TV content subscribers are already paying for delivered to them on more devices without adding in a new subscription or service provider. The Web will most likely also be used as a catch-up service, though some are trying to negotiate licenses that allow for simultaneous premieres on the Web and TV. The idea is that users are paying for the content, so why make them wait if they’re away from the TV set?
Proponents of the TV Everywhere concept see three main benefits for the offering:
1. For service providers, it will likely reduce churn and help with subscription up-selling by establishing better offerings and additional service tiers. It will also produce additional ad-revenues.
2. For content owners, it will add a controlling element to online offerings; protect existing services and licensing deals; and also give them additional ad revenues.
3. For consumers, it will add value through on-the-go and online access while adding a small or no-extra fee.
When a platform such as this is rolled out, there are three main points to address that the user should see as little of as possible: authentication, authorization and entitlement. These three also present the biggest problems that the service will encounter.
Authentication refers to the login that users will input, proving that they are who they say they are. Depending on who you ask, these details should either be used on only the service provider’s dedicated Web space or on both the service provider’s and the content provider’s Web sites.
Authorization checks and verifies that the consumer has the right to watch the content he’s trying to watch, something that the user should never have to fool with unless he wants to or in case of a problem. This is the back-end system the telco or cableco develops so that it and content providers can verify customer subscription information.
Entitlement is simply applying existing policies to these new access rights. These will change depending on what company is implementing the offering and what broadcasters they are including in it.
Chris Drake, a senior business director for thePlatform, said that the initial development and rollout of these services will be “less TV Everywhere and more TV in some places.”
Drake was referring to the myriad licensing deals that will have to take place for such an offering to come into play – mainly the deals that extend content beyond a service provider’s physical footprint.
A big problem here is for content providers. Service provider A will want to get TV content to its customers anywhere in the US, even in service provider B’s territory. Content providers will have to develop licensing to allow this while not upsetting service provider B, likely by either giving provider B the same licenses or reducing the cost of licenses for those that do not have a Web presence.
Another problem is that consumers will likely want to use the TV Everywhere offering from service provider A while traveling, but they will not always be at a location that uses that service provider for its Internet access. Should provider B get any revenue consideration for just being a dumb pipe in that case?
Content providers will also have to work out the logistics in handling users who live in one area but consistently use the Net offering in another – say a family lives in one provider’s territory and subscribes to its TV Everywhere service, but the main user is their college student in his dorm in a different content provider’s territory.
The geographical location of the user can also cause major friction in local affiliates of major studios. If a user from New York City is in Los Angeles on a business trip and wants to watch an ABC program through a TV Everywhere model, will that model give him access to the New York City local news or will he be directed to the Los Angeles news?
While content surely is king, “Context is queen,” said Drake.
Licensing for cable, satellite and telco TV systems are content providers’ bread and butter, so extensions for Web content will likely be very expensive for service providers; they will have the arduous task of striking a balance between upping service offerings and passing along the cost to consumers.
ThePlatform, a subsidiary of Comcast, actually unveiled a new product this week following Drake’s presentation on the issue at last week’s Telco TV. The company released a new platform that features its “Authentication Adapter,” which will allow networks to authenticate their content on their own Web sites.
The service works in line with Drake’s description, with an additional key feature: If users try to watch content they’re not authorized to view, the feature gives them a chance to upgrade their existing pay-TV offering to include that channel and content. Since it’s working with a lot of content providers, expect some of the ads to push getting the DVD of the program instead of only urging a user to expand a TV subscription.
ThePlatform now has more than 20 TV networks among its customers, so this is a key company to watch in this space. As some wait in the wings for the concept to develop, they’ll be keeping a close eye on how well thePlatform interacts with networks and its parent, Comcast.
The content provider side of all of this seems to be nearly ready.
There will be a few major decisions facing each service provider when the time comes to implement TV Everywhere. The short list of the big decisions come mainly from the fact that the Web is a whole new medium and needs to be treated differently from TV broadcasts.
The major questions to consider and answer are:
– Where will the Web content be accessed from?
– If allowing users access on content provider Web sites, how much personal information will the content provider be allowed to see?
– Is DVR functionality feasible, and who has to secure the rights for a Web DVR?
– How seamless can the user experience be; how few steps can be used to authenticate and authorize viewership?
– How many devices should access the service?
– Can service providers tie in additional revenue opportunities like click-through ads for direct sales? Who will then house billing information?
– Are these ads going to be priced closer to Web ads on Hulu or TV ads on major networks?
– Streaming-only or download options, too?