Monday, April 24, 2017

Most German DTT households move to DVB-T2

 The majority (51.2%) of former DVB-T users in Germany have made the move to successor system DVB-T2/HEVC and continue to receive their TV channels terrestrially.

Less than a quarter of the affected households (23.4%) have opted for other transmission infrastructures. The winner is DTH satellite reception which 11.5% of the former DVB-T households decided to use – probably because the commercial channels continue to be available free-of-charge this way. 7% signed up for a cable TV subscription, 3% opted for a streaming provider such as Zattoo, Magine TV or TV Spielfilm live and 2% became IPTV customers.
16.9% of the former DVB-T viewers now use another TV reception method available in their household, 5.5% are still evaluating the different options and 1.5% don’t watch television any more.
That’s the result of a survey market research institute TNS Infratest conducted among 200 former DVB-T users on behalf of Zattoo between April 3 and 5, 2017.
“Zattoo also benefitted from the switchover. In Q1 2017, we managed to win over 300,000 new users including 60,000 alone in the week of March 29,” said Jörg Meyer, Chief Officer Content & Consumer at Zattoo. “The growth for Zattoo increasingly takes place on the large screen. The number of hours of Zattoo usage on connected TV sets has increased by more than 40% in December 2016 alone.”
The survey also focused on the question whether the new DVB-T2 households are prepared to pay for reception of the commercial channels offered on the Freenet TV platform for €5.75 per month. 41.9% don’t want to spend money on Freenet TV. 36.2% are willing to pay, further 20% possibly.
On March 31, 2017, around 160,000 households were already signed up for Freenet TV despite the fee-based period not starting until July 1. Freenet TV expects to reach more than one million paying customers by the end of 2018.

Ericsson and Inspur bring next-gen pay TV to China

MediaFirst brings next-gen pay TV to China
  • Inspur and Ericsson forge multi-year strategic partnership to deliver next-generation TV services to China, the world’s largest pay TV market
  • Shandong Cable Network will be the first operator to benefit from the collaboration and offer an unparalleled, personalized TV experience to its 20 million subscribers
  • The companies will develop a leading-edge, open, intelligent, and agile cloud-enabled TV platform for operators based on Ericsson’s MediaFirst solution suite
Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Inspur Software Group, a leading cloud computing and big data service provider, have forged a multi-year strategic partnership to deliver innovative TV services at web speed to China, the largest pay TV market in the world.
Ericsson and Inspur will collaborate to develop a best-of-breed, cloud-enabled TV platform for operators in the burgeoning Chinese market using Ericsson’s award-winning end-to-end MediaFirst solution suite.
Shandong Cable Network, the largest operator in the Asia Pacific region and one of the largest in the world, will be the first to deploy the new TV platform in China. The new service will deliver live and on-demand TV content to 20 million subscribers in 17 cities across the Shandong Province.
Elisabetta Romano, Vice President and Head of Media Solutions, Ericsson, says: “Now, more than ever, consumers want and expect TV on their terms. A personalized, multi-screen offering is considered table-stakes for operators who want to succeed in a marketplace like China, which is home to 245 million subscribers. Together with Inspur, we see a huge opportunity to help operators to unlock this fiercely competitive market, maximize the value of their networks and transform their businesses by providing a relevant, next-generation viewing experience in the fastest way. The agreement with Shandong Cable Network further strengthens our position as leading innovators in TV and media and trusted partners in China.”
Cui Wei, Head of Digital, Business Unit Media at Inspur, says: “Ericsson is a long-established and trusted partner of Inspur. Ericsson’s global scale and expertise, and award-winning MediaFirst solution suite is a great fit for our extensive portfolio, capabilities, and local know-how. Our aim is to serve the Chinese market and empower operators by offering a transformative multi-screen TV solution that offers flexibility, scalability and agility to adapt to consumers’ changing needs; advanced analytics tools to increase revenue opportunities and reduce churn; and a world-class delivery and service model that enhances service velocity.”
Huang Ping, CTO, Shandong Cable Network says: “Our customers have access to an unprecedented amount of choice and content through their mobile devices. The increasing demand for round-the-clock, personalized video services that are easy to discover, engage with and enjoy is at an all-time high. We needed an intelligent, market relevant solution that can enable web speed transformation and cutting-edge innovations and help us to stay ahead of the curve in China’s dynamic TV market. Ericsson and Inspur meet these needs and will provide us with a world-class TV platform to deliver the next-generation TV experiences that our subscribers want and deserve.”
As part of the agreement, Inspur will integrate Ericsson’s end-to-end MediaFirst solution suite within its media portfolio. It will deploy Ericsson MediaFirst TV Platform on Inspur’s advanced set top box and home gateway solution, and Ericsson MediaFirst Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP) on Inspur’s market leading hardware solution. This will enable Inspur and Ericsson to deliver cost-effective, high performance solutions to customers that leverages both companies’ best-of-breed software and hardware. Ericsson and Inspur also intend to roll out additional TV and media solutions to operators across China in the future.

Ericsson MediaFirst TV Platform is a software-defined, next-generation, cloud-based TV platform that provides a converged multiscreen experience including Pay TV in-home, TV Everywhere and OTT services. It embraces all content sources and delivery networks. Underpinned by Ericsson’s DevOps approach, the platform offers flexibility, scalability and agility to adapt to consumers’ constantly evolving behaviors and needs.