Convergence is becoming a reality, according to market analysts Datamonitor.
The organisation has just published a report 2007 Trends to Watch: Media and Broadcasting Technology which finds says consumers are adopting technologies and services that blur the boundaries between entertainment and communication.
And it has found the key driver in new technology take-up in the media and broadcasting sector is consumer demand and acceptance of new services, rather than how good the media technology looks.
Report author Chris Khouri says consumers will only use new technologies if they see value or are positively affected in some way by a service, whether that service is mobile broadcast TV, IPTV, social networking or online advertising: “Organizations involved in the telecommunications, media and entertainment space need to address this issue and not simply endorse new services simply due to the attractiveness of the technology.”
The report covers the mobile television market, digital television in the US and Europe, the digital advertising market, social networking and the broadcast value chain.
It asks if Mobile Broadcast TV is a successful new channel or the next expensive flop, and found it has been gaining increasing traction across the globe since 2005 with trials and services launched around the world.
The Asia-Pacific region has pioneered mobile broadcast TV with Korea and Japan showing strong success with the service.
The region is set to experience further high growth as China and other nations boost their mobile broadcast television offerings.
Khouri has found consumers are becoming more willing to access a spread of video content on mobile phones, but he says the complexity of the mobile TV landscape will create serious barriers for its widespread adoption.
Different formats backed by different hardware manufacturers, technology suppliers, content providers and mobile telecommunication operators, plus spectrum allocation adds to the complexity.
He says the landscape is set to further complicate over the coming year as China pushes its own standard, China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB), based on homegrown intellectual property.
Khouri predicts strong consumer adoption of digital television until the end of the decade, but says: “The landscape is becoming more complicated as both IPTV operators and traditional broadcasters are under pressure from Internet based competition through video streaming services such as YouTube and DailyMotion.”
“The increasing promotion of white label service providers for streaming video platforms – such as vMix and VideoEgg – will further pose both a threat and opportunity for traditional digital television providers.”
“Datamonitor considers white label video streaming services to be an attractive opportunity for traditional non-broadcast media, thus blurring the definitions of media services and establishing non-traditional competitors in the digital television market.”