Beta

Just as CTAM Summit attendees declare customers don’t know much about VOD, Beta research shows VOD awareness has grown to 70% from 61% last year. Another 67% expressed interest in DVRs, and 89% said they were aware of HDTV. For the 3rd straight year, Fox Movie Channel achieved the highest interest among emerging/digital nets in the ’04 Beta cable subscriber study. Other emerging nets ranking high in interest included Hallmark Movie Channel, Science Channel, DIY, Biography Channel, History Intl, FamilyNet, Discovery Home, Lifetime Real Women and Weatherscan. The top-ranked, mid-sized nets were: Natl Geo Channel, Superstation WGN, Lifetime Movie Net, Discovery Health and Hallmark. For the 2nd consecutive year, HBO On Demand ranked 1st in VOD interest, followed by Discovery On Demand, History On Demand, ESPN On Demand and Starz On Demand. Beta also found interest in the following nets correlated with significant customer interest in VOD, DVRs and HD: Tennis, VH1 Soul, Anime Network, MTV Jams, MTV2, MTV Hits, Fuel, Trio, GSN, and Style. The telephone survey was conducted in April/May with 1K cable subs (500 were asked about 39 emerging nets, 500 were asked about 21 mid-sized nets).