IDTV

MHP at the cross-roads

CableLabs - the US cable TV standards body - has finally published my overview of the MHP market in their SPECS newsletter (click here for the article).

Two related developments that were too late to make it into the piece:

1. Italy's Senate approved a budget bill for 2007 just before Christmas that includes a measure aimed at subsidising integrated digital TV sets (IDTVs), and which the digital-terrestrial TV lobby would dearly like to make conditional on MHP being included in the sets. If so, it would represent another big boost for the European interactive TV standard (which, incidentally, is included as part of the DVD Blu-Ray spec). Full story in this week's New Media Markets.
2. Via Licensing, the LA-based outfit which brings together the MHP patent holders in a patent licensing pool, tells me the patent-holders still haven't signed off on the MHP patent licensing agreements. Given that all it takes is a simple signature, there must be something afoot, surely (sign-off was expected by early autumn 2006). Rumour has it that one of the patent-holders could have dropped out.

Helium - a wiki that pays

A new twist on the community-created content idea - but one that pays. Helium is a new US-based content site with international ambitions. The idea is a sort of cross between Wikipedia and Digg: registered members write articles about things that interest them, and submit them to a vetting process which involves other registered members of the site, who then give the article a rating.

The article is then posted - and if it gets a high enough rating, and garners enough hits, the author starts getting paid for his work. The good stuff, defined by the 'wisdom of the crowds', automatically rises to the top, hence the name 'Helium', and receives the highest level of revenue.

It seems like a clever idea. I've posted a few articles to see what happens, although I suspect the audience is probably too US-centric to be interested in the sort of stuff that I like writing about.

I should also declare a family interest: my younger brother wrote the code for the site's search-engine! We'll see how it develops - but have a look, and see what you think....

Mobile TV: the evidence reviewed

On Tuesday I gave a presentation to the 'DVD and Beyond' conference in London about Mobile TV, which came to the conclusion (among other things) that DVB-H was the most likely standard to be adopted in Europe; that there was a market for broadcast television to handheld devices, but not a mass-market one; and that the business model looked exceedingly risky.

The presentation contained a lot of detailed research evidence from a wide variety of sources, and visitors to this blog who are interested in the topic can download the presentation here (but be warned, it's a zipped 3 Meg file!).

In an email to me after the conference, its organizer, Dr Jean-Luc Renaud, told me: "Your ability to present dense and complicated material in a user-friendly way is legendary, and I learnt an amazing amount about mobile TV." I hope you do, too!

Sky buys into ITV

"British Sky Broadcasting Group plc ('BSkyB') announces that it has acquired a
stake in ITV plc ('ITV'). BSkyB has today acquired 696 million shares,
representing 17.9 per cent of the issued share capital of ITV, at a price of 135
pence per share. The total consideration amounts to approximately GBP 940
million, which will be funded from the group's existing cash balances and its
currently undrawn revolving credit facility." Link: BSkyB - Corporate - Press Release.

Well, I guess that scuppers NTL's proposed acquisition of ITV! It also probably scuppers the BBC/ITV Freesat initiative... 

As always with BSkyB, one has to admire their audacity.... Wonder what Ofcom will say?

Sling to your cell

Uncertainties over the viability of mobile TV business plans have increased following the announcement that the Slingbox technology will be extended to encompass mobile phones.

A Slingbox essentially lets you watch what appears on your TV set anywhere in the world on a laptop via a broadband connection. Now 3G operator 3UK has done a deal with Sling to allow you to do that on your cellphone.

Because of the unexpectedly high amount of in-home viewing that trials of mobile broadcast TV have demonstrated, any commercial services were always going to be ripe for cannibalisation from Freeview (once it became portable) and pay-TV operators like Sky (once they decided to invest in portable PVRs).

But Sling poses a fresh threat to the mobile TV model outside the home, because the thinking was always that there was 'unused airtime' to be exploited by consumers on long commutes. Sling-enabled 3G phones can now shoehorn themselves into this space, too, without anyone having to invest in expensive new mobile broadcast networks.

The beauty of the Sling model is that the mobile network operator doesn't have to broadcast a large amount of TV channels: in effect, the consumer deploys their own in-home TV set-up as a sort of domestic video-on-demand server. Definitely a development to watch....