IPTV Services to Become More Personalized

CAMPBELL, CA - IPTV has had an outsized impact on the pay-TV market, driving service innovation and forcing cable companies to play catch-up, according to a new study by market research firm Infonetics Research. Now, IPTV operators are planning to push video services to the next level.

Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research, explains, "Despite representing only a small portion of the total pay-TV market, IPTV services have had a significant impact on the market, forcing change across the entire ecosystem of video delivery. Although most IPTV operators continue to focus on customer acquisition by offering similar services as their competition, our latest IPTV survey confirms that IPTV services are entering their next phase as operators move beyond basic video offerings and begin providing consumers a highly personalized, highly integrated and portable on-demand viewing experience. Multiscreen viewing, interactive applications and social networking are some of the services expected to be implemented over the next year. Although telco operators have led with innovation using IP video, satellite and cable operators are quickly leveraging broadband infrastructure to offer similar services. It will be important for IPTV operators to watch the competition closely to determine the direction of this market."

Infonetics' findings include:

. By 2012, 63 percent of IPTV service providers interviewed plan to support multiscreen viewing across PCs, tablets and smartphones.
. The two most widely deployed IPTV applications now and next year are widgets (such as weather and traffic updates) and caller ID on the TV.
. About half the surveyed IPTV operators plan to offer targeted or interactive advertising by 2012.
. IPTV operators are approaching social networking for TV cautiously, with only 26 percent offering it now, growing to 41 percent by 2012; among those that offer these capabilities, Facebook and Twitter are most popular services.