On the eve of the London Olympics you'd think I'd be writing an
article about how broadcasters are covering the games. Not yet! The
BBC has a Super Hi-Vision screening event on Monday (SHV delivers
picture quality 16 times the size of HDTV) which I'll be reporting
from but, for now, I thought it would be interesting to do a
technology comparison - especially where it relates to
video-on-demand - between the last Olympics in 2008 and now.
Here are 7 ways in which the VOD world has changed since
then:
#1. iPhone market share has gone from about
5% in 2008 to
30% in 2012 in the UK
As at May 2012,
53% of the UK mobile-using population of 60m had a
smartphone - the main device that most of us still use
to watch VOD on the go. Android's market share grew from 44.6% in
the 12 weeks to mid-April 2011 to 50.1% in May this year.
#2. There was no iPad in 2008
Given its ubiquity it seems incredible that the iPad only
launched in April 2010. Apple
sold three millon iPads in the first 80 days following
release and, according to its latest quarterly
results, shifted
a further 17 million units in 2Q12.
#3. The BBC iPlayer has gone from strength to strength
The iPlayer launched on Christmas Day 2007 and,
as this BBC press release tells us, had streamed over
3.5 million programmes within a fortnight. By January 2009 that
figure had grown to 46 million TV requests, rising again to 88
million requests in January 2010, 126 million in January 2011 and
146 million in January 2012.
#4. Samsung launched its first Smart TV in 2008
Fast forward a few years and approximately 25% of the TV sets
shipped globally in 2011 were internet-connected, a figure
forecasted to approach 70% of total TV shipments in 2016
according to IMS Research. That said,
a different study by Kantar Media suggests that less
than one in five UK adults owns a connected TV and only 7% have
used their set to actually connect to the web.
#5. On-demand services in general have thrived
Here in the UK, Lovefilm's subscriber base has increased from
less than 1 million in 2009 to over 2 million this year; ITV Player
has almost
doubled its online unique monthly users from 6.5m in 2008 to 11.7m
last year and 4oD reported 429 million views across
all platforms in 2011 - a rise of 15% on 2010.
#6. People are watching more television than ever
The average worldwide daily television viewing time has
increased from 189 minutes in 2008 to 196 minutes last year says
Eurodata TV. "Digital recording devices promote time
shifted viewing, a consumption which adds 11% to live daily viewing
times in the US and 10% in the UK."
#7. AND talking about TV in new ways
Anthony
Rose hadn't even conceived the idea of zeebox in 2008
and there were no dedicated social TV services like GetGlue, Miso
or IntoNow. We were all still yapping around actual water coolers
back then!
What other important changes have taken place? Add your comments
in the box below.