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IPTV won’t kill old viewing habits – Sir Martin Sorrell

by Sarah Griffiths on 1 July 2010, 17:03

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Thinking outside the box

The advent of clever TV tech including IPTV will not persuade the majority of people to shake up their current viewing habits, according to the boss of the largest advertising firm in the world.

Speaking at the Intel Screen Futures event, the chief executive of WPP, Sir Martin Sorrell (pictured below), said IPTV is likely to accompany conventional TV, which he believes has a ‘strong future' in the UK.

IP TV marries internet capabilities such as search options with television and includes: live TV, time-shifted programming, and video on-demand as opposed to standard linear TV.

Sorrell said: "Traditional TV will remain dominant" with developments like IP technology working around conventional television schedules, proving people are quite happy flicking through channels and waiting for their programme to be on without a handy searchable or on-demand.

While he predicts 15-20 percent of people will use IP TV by 2020, he does not think the take-up will be as fast as some commentators have forecast. "Traditional viewing will remain resilient with 75 percent of viewers sticking to linear TV by 2020," he said. 

Sobering figures for technology buffs from the Broadcaster's Audience Research Board (BARB), show, while the average Brit watches 4hours 5 minutes of TV a day, just 8 percent of users watch TV online and only 7 percent of total viewing was time-shifted or on-demand.

Sorrell believes Pay TV will become an increasingly important by 2020 and perhaps define the TV revolution as much as real technological changes.

The ad-guru predicts pay TV will make up over half of all TV funding by 2020, from 39 percent today. Conversely, he expects adverts to comprise a smaller part of TV finding, falling to 20-25 percent in 2020 from current levels of 31 percent. 

"The balance of power is also set to swing from the content provider to the TV operator, so companies like Sky, BT and Virgin will win," said Sorrell. He described News Corp's bid to takeover BSkyB as "shrewd" as he tipped platform owners to be raking in the big bucks in a decade's time.

 

 



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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Where are they doing all the surveys like this to gauge demand for new technology like this?

I bet it's at places like gala bingo and other OAP hang outs judging from the results they are getting as I bet all the younger generations will embrace this technology just like they have everything else.

There is a demand for IPTV and it's growing and gaining momentum as more people hear about it.
IPTV isn't just on demand, it also includes live streaming of events.

I can see it replacing regular TV delivery methods especially considering a 6mb connection can steam HD TV, and approx 50% of Virgin bandwidth you get to the house is TV signal, if they switched to purely digital IPTV based I think they can greatly increase current speeds, enabling even better content delivery

It also allows PPV to be regulated much more tightly, you can buy cable boxes that will receive everything virgin pump through to your door (all services) but with an IPTV you wouldn't get any content as a box would not work if it was a silent box (one which doesn't send data back to the servers for authentication/requests)

Also stops cloned decoding cards/devices operating as it can ban a cloned device based on first authenticated or other rules
I agree with finlay to a certain extent but what about those of us with out cable? I doubt BT are going to improve the broadband architecture of this country quick enough to cope with anything greater than 20% usage. I know my 8Mb connection struggles with iplayer SD content some days….
Exactly, these technologies really depend on existing infrastructure and tech that requires it to work proper. Going back to early 2010, I couldn't even get youtube properly because my connection was churning out dailup speeds. (because of BT's crappy lines and maintenance.)
The thing that kills the idea of a pure IPTV system for me is a family. With broadcast TV of any kind you can split it to multiple rooms and have anyone watching anything without a bandwidth problem.

Current BB might be able to handle a Tv feed, but not 3 or 4 that a family might have. it does have its uses though, video on demand for a film library or making the old BBC content available on demand for example would be awesome.

But it will take a long long time before regular broadcast goes away if it ever does.