IPTV: Signs of Changing Behavior, Maybe

There's some important new evidence that U.K. customers who change to IPTV from conventional terrestrial TV do change their behavior in ways that boost average revenue per user, say researchers at Point Topic.

There's countervailing evidence that U.S. consumers are not so inclined.

The ability to time shift TV viewing often leads to customers using pay-per-view as well, Point Topic says.

For example, one top-ten operator has found that around a third of its IPTV subscribers buy three or four pay-per-view items per month. Since the implication is that this exceeds the buy rate for non-IPTV users, there is some potential lift in average revenue per user.

High definition TV is the other potential behavioral change. Subscribers may be willing to pay more for HDTV than for standard-definition programming, again with positive ARPU impact.

ABI Research, on other hand, does not find that U.S. consumers are changing their on-demand habits.

About 66 percent of respondents say they subscribe to some form of pay-TV service, and of those, 60 percent receive at least one additional service (telephone, Internet) from their provider.

However, only 54 percent of respondents declared themselves satisfied overall with their providers: pricing and customer service are the biggest sources of discontent.

About 41 percent of TV owners have a high-definition TV, but surprisingly, only 56 percent of this group subscribe to a HDTV service package.

A substantial 45 percent of viewers say they use pay-per-view, but not often: most do so just once a month or less.

Generally, interest in “next generation” TV services is low (although greater in younger viewers), with the one exception being the ability to move content sourced from the Internet from the PC to the TV.