Feature: Multichannel TV Reaches Milestone
Digital TV does nothing if not throw up new questions for the industry. Highlights of the existing list of questions included: Is the 2006-10 deadline still a possibility? and Is giving away set top boxes a sustainable strategy? In recent weeks these have been joined by: Will the BBC ever convince the DCMS that an entertainment channel funded by licence fees is not a threat to commercial outfits such as E4? Is it really okay for the BBC to invest a large lump of licence fee money in an arts channel watched by just 11,000 digital viewers on launch night? And perhaps the scariest for some: Have Deloitte & Touche been called into ITV Digital to administer last rites and if so what on earth happens next?
Meanwhile, back at the sharp end of the remote control, a milestone has been reached, as figures from the ITC/BSC research document The Public’s View 2001 have revealed that 50% of respondents to a BMRBI survey had multi-channel TV services. Multichannel subscribers are no longer a minority then, and growth has been across the board (see graph below), but is this a signal that the 2006-2010 question at least could have a positive answer?
The Public’s View answers a decisive…maybe. Of respondents with multichannel access, 66% said that they would definitely be subscribing in 12 months time, and 87% thought it highly likely. However, of those who did not yet have multichannel access, only 28% said that they were interested in acquiring it, although the figure was higher- 68% among those aged 16-24, and 39% among those 25-44.
The survey also backed up the view that interactive TV is gaining in popularity, suggested by the success of last year’s Wimbledon coverage, Sky’s interactive football coverage and the ITV2 version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The survey suggests that 56% of the population think that interactive services on digital TV are a good idea, although only 24% said they would be willing to pay for them.
Subscribers can access ten years of media news and analysis in the Archive