Integrated PVRs To Boom In The US As The UK Market Takes Off
The US market for set-top boxes with integrated PVRs (personal video recorders) will grow six-fold between now and 2008, according to new data from Park Associates. The standalone PVR market will be supplanted by set-top recorders provided by television service operators, along the lines of Sky+ in the UK and will reach 25 million US homes by 2008.
Market research firm Park Associates says that increased competition between digital operators will see them boost their PVR offerings. In coming years they will be used to offer a wider range of services to consumers, including on-demand content.
“By deploying set-top boxes with hard-disk drives, cable and satellite television companies are addressing the growing appetite for digital content while also eliminating subscribers’ need for an additional, standalone box,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president of Parks Associates.
“The deployment of such set-top boxes, in concert with advanced services such as high-definition television content and video-on-demand, will also create a ‘stickier’ relationship between the provider and the subscriber during a period of intense competition,” says Scherf.
In the UK, PVR uptake has been boosted recently by a huge marketing drive by Sky+, BSkyB’s integrated set top box and personal video recorder. But TiVo, the original PVR which is a standalone product, pulled out of the UK market after failing to build sales and there are fears that even State-side the manufacturer will begin to struggle as integrated technology becomes the norm.
Tivo has predicted it will have 2.5 million users in the US by January 2005, but it faces competition from both own-brand PVRs offered by cable giant EchoStar, which has around a million subscribers, and Time Warner Cable, with around 250,000 PVR users.
In the UK, Sky+ now has 250,000 subscribers (see BSkyB’s Good Run Continues With H1 Results) and take-up is growing more quickly than anticipated. Media agency PHD has predicted that subscriber levels will reach one million in 2005 (see PVRs Could Transform The Media Planning Process).
There have been worries about the impact of PVR technology on television spot advertising. The technology allows viewers to skip through adverts during playback and the PHD survey said that personal video recorders could begin to affect the media planning process in the UK as early as 2006.