IPTV Is Real: And Rights Issues Will Be Interesting

The 2nd day of Euroconsult’s World Broadcasting Business Week in London brought some real life examples of IPTV (meaning, in this context, IP delivery of video signals at broadcast HD level quality). IPTV can be found in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and, pretty soon (see "Another Telco Entry" below) in a big, interesting and new other way in the UK. Already, 2.1mln UK TV HHs can access IP VOD run over UK cable by the On Demand Group whose CEO, Tony Kelly, claimed that "any time you can put together a million homes, you can makes some money" in IPTV. In Hong Kong, PCCW has a half million IPTV subs (but is still losing money after a switch from a more classic cable approach). UBC, active in Asia and Africa, is moving to continue the "legitimization" (something of a long road) of Thai TV with "TrueIPTV – My Personal TV." DISH TV in India is "looking into it." Meanwhile, in Germany, separate sports rights for some soccer games have been sold into an "IPTV window." In Italy, without much of a cable industry at all, Telecom Italia is coming in with an IPTV product over DSL. — Euroconsult reported that some 15,600 different "channels" enjoy some sort of satellite feed around the world; 9,400 of which are scattered among some 60 DTH platforms (this includes local-into-local) and of which some two-thirds are classified as "thematic." Tomorrow, the agenda focuses on HDTV. – PSM