Panasonic is expanding content available on its connected TVs in Australia with the addition of Telstra's VoD service, BigPond Movies. Other content available via apps on the Viera TVs includes ABC iView, Yahoo!7 Plus 7, Facebook and Twitter.
This is a logical step for Panasonic, even if Telstra and Panasonic could be considered competitors on the connected TV market. A growing number of apps is essential for a winning strategy in connected TV, alongside user friendliness, availability of new services and good content discovery. New services include especially social apps, which enrich the TV viewing experience. Content discovery includes a variety of issues, from an elegant menu structure to a smart recommendations engine.
The agreement is more remarkable from Telstra's perspective, although it has struck similar deals with LG and Samsung in recent years. The operator shows itself to be a clear content aggregator and will benefit from a share of the revenues. This won't be that much, as in addition to Panasonic the content producers also get a large share. Whatever the case, there is a clear emphasis on content, without actually producing it in-house. This led to the decision to include BigPond and its other media assets in the new Telstra Digital Media division from January.
What's also interesting about the deals with Panasonic, Samsung and LG is that Telstra is making its VoD library available 'off-net', that is, to users who are not broadband subscribers at Telstra. This strategy, where the aggregator (BigPond) expands beyond the footprint of the operator (Telstra), is rarely seen, although BSkyB will soon launch a similar concept in the UK.
Operators with a substantial content portfolio can exploit this further by offering over-the-top services. This means offering the content also to non-subscribers. And if the network coverage is not national, while the rights were bought on a countrywide basis, then the opportunity is even bigger. Regional cable operators, such as Ziggo and UPC in the Netherlands, Telenet in Belgium and Virgin Media in the UK, can use this to their advantage.
Telecompaper is organising on 20 June in Laren the conference Breedband 2012. In addition to the state of business in the Netherlands and a discussion on broadband in outlying areas, Telecompaper will present a number of interesting cases in short pitches (Reseach On Stage). Offering content off-net will be one of those cases.
