The UK is lagging behind the rest of Europe in its IPTV provision, with only one nationally available IPTV service compared to eight services in France, four major operations in Spain, two in Italy and two in Germany.
New research from Screen Digest reveals that the UK began the year with only 54,000 IPTV customers, all on the BT Vision platform.
It adds that whilst BT is now adding 2,000-3,000 customers per week, the delayed national roll-out of Tiscali TV has ensured that fewer than one in 100 UK households will be taking IPTV by the end of the year.
By contrast, Screen Digest predicts that nearly one in 25 will have it in Spain and around one in ten French households will take IPTV by the beginning of 2008.
Yet despite this, European IPTV as a whole has showed strong gains so far this year, with companies like France Telecom, Telefonica, Free and Neuf Cegetel making amends for the UK’s slow roll-out.
Richard Broughton, Screen Digest’s IPTV analyst, said: “The acceleration seen in the uptake of European IPTV this year is symptomatic of the success operators have had in marketing and targeting their services. BT can only be hoping that its service will emulate this success.”
Understanding & Solutions recently forecast that internet TV advertising could achieve revenues of up to $10 billion worldwide by 2011 (see Internet TV Ad Revenues Could Reach $10bn Worldwide).In separate research, iSuppli forecast that the market for IPTV video services will rise to $26.3 billion in 2011, up from $779.2 million in 2006 (see IPTV Video Revenue To Reach $26 Billion By 2011).
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