TV-everywhere not on public’s radar: study

Canadian broadcast distributors need to do more to increase awareness and usage of their TV-everywhere products, according to Gord Hendren, president of Charlton Strategic Research, which produced a report on the subject. Hendren said in a phone interview that the study found 47 per cent of respondents were aware of TV-everywhere as a concept, while 25 per cent of Canadians are using such services, across all Canadian TV providers. In comparison, the study found, 35 per cent of Canadians subscribe to Netflix Inc.’s service. “Which says that the industry needs to really make an effort to increase usage of TV-everywhere,” he said. TV-everywhere services offered by companies such as Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. are tied into subscribers’ TV subscriptions and allow subscribers to watch shows and movies online from computers, tablets and smartphones. Hendren said that at less than 50 per cent per cent, awareness “is certainly low, and is certainly less than, I think, the industry would like it to be.” “I just don’t think it’s been promoted as much as it needs to be,” he said. “So I think there’s still a job to be done by the industry in getting that done.” That job includes letting customers know the services exist and how to access them, as well as "making it better, in terms of … eliminating some of these issues, like buffering and slow access to it.” The report was scheduled to be presented at the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing’s Canada Broadcaster Forum in Toronto on Wednesday. It was based on online surveys in July with 3,102 respondents, with a margin of error of 1.8 per cent, 19 times out of 20, according to presentation slides provided by CTAM. The slides noted that while awareness of the concept of TV-everywhere was low, “when probed, 7 in 10 have heard of a specific brand of TVE.” Barriers for TV-everywhere include customers fearing cost increases, and “slow buffering and slow access,” as well as “concern about privacy and information,” Hendren said. It’s important for companies to drive usage of TV-everywhere because doing so can help broadcast distributors retain customers, Hendren said. The report found that perceived benefits of TV-everywhere include allowing customers to watch what they want, when they want, offering a convenient way to catch up on TV shows, giving them peace of mind that they’ll never miss a TV show and offering a no-cost way to watch movies. “So in other words, it’s a competitor to OTT, and we see from our results that it actually reinforces retention, so it can stem or stop some of the concern about either cord-trimming or cord-cutting,” Hendren said. The report found that those with the highest interest in TV-everywhere are people who were early adopters of OTT services. “We know that the total consumption of video content is increasing, in general. So making it more accessible is a good thing, and making it more easily accessible is also a good thing.” “Making it as easy as possible would be good. I think Netflix has done an excellent job at making their service very accessible,” Hendren noted. Hendren said the low awareness level, and usage level, of these services was surprising. “In this age of technology, you’d assume it would be higher,” he noted. Because this marks “the first time we’ve done a deep dive into TV-everywhere,” he said he doesn’t have any data about how much use and awareness has grown. Interest in Canada in these services is lower compared to the U.S., the study also found, though Hendren said Canadians in general tend to be “more cautious about how they use the Internet,” with online shopping rates, for instance, being below other countries despite higher connectivity. The Wire Report reported in March that customer confusion exists in the TV-everywhere market, with companies like Bell and Rogers having separate names for different services that allow their customers to watch TV through their wireless devices, on their computers, and through numerous apps and websites offered by their media subsidiaries. Corus Entertainment Inc. announced on Wednesday new TV-everywhere apps for its children's specialty channels Treehouse, Teletoon and YTV. It said in a press release the apps are for devices running on Apple Inc.'s iOS or Google Inc.'s Android software, and available to those who subscribe to these channels through a TV service. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

TV-everywhere not on public’s radar: study

Broadcast | November 19, 2014

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