As long as you’re hooked up to broadband, you’ll never have to miss an episode of Eastenders again. Or if melodramatic soap operas aren’t your thing, perhaps a video recap of the day’s biggest headlines?
The BBC introduced free, video-on-demand content in the UK this summer through a downloadable programme called the BBC iPlayer. India, Japan, Australia and Singapore will be among the first in Asia to get the programme.
Internal research from the BBC Trust predicts that by 2011, a third of all TV shows will be on-demand. Which may explain why the public broadcaster has shelled out a hefty US$300 million to kick-start the five-year ad-funded initiative. Looks good on paper, but will it work in Asia? And should other media owners follow suit?
1 The BBC iPlayer is the first of its kind from a media owner. Other sites, from CNN to MTV, support either streaming videos (like YouTube) or paid, videos-on-demand (VOD). According to Colin Lawrence, global VP of sales strategy at BBC World, the motivation behind the iPlayer is a significant shift in consumer behaviour, as well as increasing broadband penetration. “We see a huge amount of usage during office and lunch hours,” he says. “People don’t have time to sit through a linear newspaper or TV station.” However, Lawrence maintains that the platform will never compete with televised BBC news. “The line we’re taking now is that we have to be a multi-platform gathering. It’s complementary to video and TV.”
2 Free VOD is the way to go, agrees Craig Harvey, director of media research at Synovate Asia-Pacific. This year was the first time Synovate’s annual PAX surveyed people in Asia who watch TV through their PCs - either pre-recorded or streaming. Forty-two per cent of those surveyed in Manila used their PC’s, while the region averaged 24 per cent. “More people are going screen-based and new digital innovations are just catering to a younger market.”
3 However, CW Cheung, a consulting director at Ovum Asia-Pacific, believes that the BBC will benefit more from brand loyalty than revenue dollars. “Ultimately, I believe the BBC’s iPlayer will converge with IPTV,” Cheung says. The BBC will find it too costly to develop everything on its own, and will eventually have to collaborate with a telco, an internet service provider (ISP) or even a search platform. “It will generate some revenue and increase market share for the brand as a whole, but customer service is the priority,” Cheung adds.
4 While the iPlayer might not be a cash cow for the BBC, Cheung argues that due to the growing shift in consumption habits, media owners can’t afford to wait for IPTV to get their act together. IPTV, a telco-run platform of TV channels for the PC, is still plagued by regulatory and infrastructure issues. In fact, despite years of hype, Cheung estimates that there are fewer than 10 million IPTV subscribers in the world.
5 Ravi Kiran, CEO of specialist solutions, Starcom South Asia, agrees that video format advertising “is the future, absolutely”, but stops short of recommending the iPlayer medium to his own clients. “As far as I know, iPlayer doesn’t support interactive content,” he says. “There are few options in Asia, even in streaming. People mistakenly try to transfer the structure of TV advertising to online.” He says the BBC must fix its backend to leverage the web’s non-linear delivery to offer non-disruptive advertising options.
6 However, if such problems are ironed out, the potential is there. Rufus Weston, research director at the UK’s Dynamic Logic, believes that brand recall through online broadcast is higher than via TV. “Video advertising is more interruptive than TV. With TV, there’s always the remote or making a cup of tea, while if you click on video, you’ve made a determined effort to watch the clip.”
7 "The digital ad market may not be as developed in Asia, but consumer behaviour is,” adds Kiran. Ovum’s Cheung is even less optimistic that the iPlayer will succeed in Asia for three reasons. One, resistance from local ISPs eyeing profit share from the BBC: “Just look at the trouble Google has faced in China.” Two, the BBC faces strict, heterogeneous content regulations in the region. And three, broadband maturity is simply not there outside a handful of mature markets.
What it means for…
Advertisers
- Video advertising receives higher brand recall than TV, according to Rufus Weston, a research director at the UK’s Dynamic Logic, because users actively click into the ad.
- Don’t make the mistake of lifting TV commercials to online videos. As Ravi Kiran, CEO of specialist solutions, Starcom South Asia, puts it: “The whole reason people get irritated with TV is the ads - and now people are doing it to web TV.”
- Watching an online video is non-linear, opt-in and interactive. Kiran says all three must be leveraged for an online video ad to be effective.
Media owners
- It may not be profitable yet, but making your TV content online for free is practically a forgone conclusion given the significant shift of viewers to the PC. The BBC’s iPlayer will probably find copycats, says Ovum research director CW Cheung.
- Don’t wait for IPTV to ‘happen’, advises Cheung, since the infrastructure is still far from ready for mainstream use. Go straight to your consumer with compelling video-on-demand content on your own.
-Pay attention to which software you use to run your video-on-demand content. Unlike streaming videos, video-on-demand requires digital rights management, meaning that consumers must download software that plays the file for a specified amount of time. The BBC tapped Microsoft, fuelling rage from Apple users in the UK who cannot use the iPlayer.
