Television: The answer to network operators diminishing customer base
The telecommunications industry is a competitive landscape and the need to embrace new revenue and technology is more important than ever. Customer loyalty is decreasing with churn rates as high as 30-40 per cent. Markets are extremely price sensitive so what can network operators do to counter this?
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Quad play is the latest buzzword. Mobile operators, cable and satellite pay TV groups in Europe, the United States and elsewhere are scrambling to secure service for quad play packages: mobile; fixed-line; broadband and TV; to offer customers a multi-function service and benefit from cross marketing.
The quad play logic is simple – customers want to buy services from a single service provider and service providers will save costs by billing one customer for multiple services. With TV, mobile, broadband and fixed - line services in one place and at one cost, why switch?
For telecommunications companies that want to benefit from TV, the introduction of an integrated OTT platform is the most effective way to do it. However, they must be flexible, familiar and mirror the living room experience. Historically television was hard for TSPs due to a lack of expertise. Service providers now need to consider TV in the same way as other data travelling over their networks (albeit in much larger volumes) as a revenue opportunity.
To fulfil the promise of the increasing demand for TV Everywhere there are many things to consider, not least the complex mix of products that constitutes the modern TV experience.
Today’s television consists of four distinct but inter-related services. These are:
* Live TV – watching when the programme is broadcast
* Catch up – being able to view programmes that have previously been aired
* Recording – recording programmes for playback later or to keep
* On demand – watching premium content, whether it has been aired or not, at a time of the user’s choice
The in-house TV experience is now dominated by these four capabilities and any serious TSP that wishes to make a success of the TV market needs to deliver a service incorporating them all.
TSPs must also work across an array of operating systems and devices: smartphones and tablets; desktops and laptops; connected/smart TVs; and OTT set-top boxes to be a comprehensive multiscreen offering.
Once TSPs have embraced OTT, expanded to all devices and worked out technology challenges, they can figure out the most appropriate monetisation model — or combination of models — to pursue: subscription; rental; freemium to premium; or purchase. White label IPTV platforms such as the Perception platform – from PerceptionTV – offer an integrated TV service that provides an end to end solution for TSPs. IPTV can be an expensive market to break into, particularly for companies with little TV experience, but the Perception platform is cloud-based and scalable – ready to be implemented in 16 weeks.
If companies are able to drive down costs with attractive quad play packages, consumers benefit from lower prices, simpler choices - a one-stop-shop for all media needs - and added content such as extra channels or exclusive content. TV can act as the anchor service for network operators, sharing its historically loyal customer base with other services. TV technology is evolving and where pay TV once competed with OTT, it is now embracing it. Operators must customise services for viewers dedicated to online TV, and pay TV viewers. An integrated IPTV platform is a simple and cost effective way for telecommunications operators to deliver an engaging new service to subscribers.
The above is written by Peter Cox, Marketing Director, PerceptionTV. PerceptionTV is a video platform, software licensing and services company.