Multi-Screen Offers Long-Term Opportunities, Digital Hollywood Told
Multi-screen consumption of content is “definitely not a fad,” Eric Berger, Sony Pictures Entertainment executive vice president-Digital Networks, told the Digital Hollywood conference in New York Thursday. Berger, Rob Sussman, Epix executive vice president-business operations, development and strategy, and other panelists said multi-screen offers long-term opportunities for content providers, but there are several challenges. There was disagreement on which companies will win the battle for connected TV dominance.
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New consumers will be “indifferent” to the origin of content they consume, predicted Berger. Consumers are already “perfectly happy” to view short- and long-form video content on small-screen devices including tablets and smartphones, he said. Consumers are also using mobile devices in conjunction with TVs, including as remote controls for the TV, he said. That usage is “really starting to emerge,” he said.
More than 27 percent of the U.S. population owns a tablet, more than half have a smartphone and more than 70 percent own a flat-panel TV, Deloitte & Touche Telecom Sector Leader Craig Wigginton said his company’s recent data showed. Fifty-three percent of tablet owners use the device while viewing TV and 43 percent said tablets are a more important entertainment device in the home than a TV, he said. Computers are “pulling ahead of the TV” as the preferred entertainment device, he said. Mobile broadband, meanwhile, continues to expand, he said.
There had been concern that people would skip over all ads while viewing content outside of traditional live TV broadcasts, but many viewers just turn their heads to their smartphones during ad breaks and don’t opt to skip the commercials, said Brian Hughes, senior vice president-audience analysis at research company Magna Global.
But “fragmentation” among devices “continues unabated,” said Scott Brown, Nielsen senior vice president-engineering and strategic relations. People tend to gravitate to the “best screen available,” but “everything is moving to cross-platform very rapidly,” he said. Many consumers are open to having their computer video viewing measured like TV viewing is measured, and Nielsen is working on the creation of new metrics to get a better picture of actual ratings across all devices, he said. For example, Nielsen is testing a solution for tablet-based measurement, he said. Expansion of watermarks on content can enable more accurate ratings across multiple devices, he said.
People still like to view content while sitting on a couch in their living room, said Sussman. But there are bandwidth and “battery life issues” in using mobile devices to watch video in the home that make it “just not viable” now, he said. Battery life, in particular, is “definitely a big concern,” agreed Wigginton.
There are also “capacity issues across the networks” as millions of people often try to view the same content, said Ahmet Ozalp, vice president-products, media at content delivery company Akamai. He pointed to the Olympics as an example of one program that was heavily in-demand. It’s a “big challenge” for the content ecosystem that must be resolved to avoid consumers being turned off, he said. The industry needs to invest in solutions including multicast, he said. He predicted “something will happen to increase the bandwidth” for viewing video because consumers will demand it. But Wigginton said he doubted whether data caps will go away anytime soon.
Another issue is the lack of consistency in the cost to view content on multiple devices, said Berger. It becomes “confusing” for people when content is free in one place and costs something elsewhere, he said. It’s also a “cumbersome” process for content companies to give the green light to so many applications across multiple devices, said Berger. That’s why Epix is now trying to focus on just a few devices for its content, said Sussman. There “will be some caution” by Epix from now on when selecting which devices its content will be optimized for, he said.
The winner among companies offering a connected TV solution will be whoever creates a “seamless experience” across devices, said Ozalp. Connected TV functionality will eventually be included in all TVs, Brown and Hughes predicted. “Game consoles are the winner right now,” said Sussman. The consoles have a much larger installed base than other set-top boxes that provide Internet functionality to TVs, he said. Most console owners are using those devices for multiple forms of content, not just games, he said. He predicted that TV makers won’t be the winners because they lack the horsepower of many other devices, he said.