To the vast majority of viewers, television means an editorialized experience delivered at high quality with 100% availability. The current IPTV ecosystem providers support this paradigm by delivering simple and intuitive Electronic Program Guides (EPGs), Digital Video Recorder (DVR) control, fast channel change, browsable Video-on-Demand (VoD) catalogs, and catch-up TV selections.

Through DVR functionality, viewers are beginning to exert more control over what they watch but the experience is still simple, reliable, and high quality (both in terms of the content and the picture/sound).

The next stage of the evolution of IPTV is to deliver a truly relevant, contextual, valuable, consistent experience through the TV screen by effectively grouping the right content assets together at the right time -- understanding and creating associations of content.

So what is an asset? In our segment of the telecom biz, we traditionally think about assets as copper or fiber or other infrastructure-oriented equipment in the outside plant. Granted, we are used to being network-focused. But we must also understand how other assets can help us win the end user’s loyalty in the long run. That’s why we must adjust our thinking and realize that an EPG listing is an asset, a movie synopsis is an asset, an advert is an asset, a widget displaying a stock price is an asset, a logo is an asset, and ultimately any applications running on the set-top box can be regarded as assets.

To work with that adjusted mindset, service providers must first exploit the VoD catalogue to its full advantage. Using asset associations to actively sell, cross-sell, and merchandise content products is essential. Offering films from the catalog that have the same actor but in a different genre is a basic example. Knowing and exploiting these associations between items in the catalog is an important way to drive sales.

Secondly, it’s critical to track the return on investment of every asset. This, of course, allows more intelligent and considered content sourcing and the maximizing of rights once that content sits in the VoD library. Service providers can plan and research their on-demand markets, products, pricing, and promotions, and drive stronger sales and margins.

Armed with these capabilities, telcos can look to a brighter future with the ability to ensure that the content they buy will work for them. Essentially, telcos begin to think and act like a retailer.

Act Like a Retailer?
So how does a telco sell to the customer? On the most valuable piece of content real estate: the EPG. This is the principle viewer destination within any television user interface and is the key access point for all types of content - be it broadcast, on-demand, catch-up, or local (DVR, DLNA). If the EPG looked like an Amazon recommendations list, showing previously viewed and bought items with recommendations delivered to the viewers surely they would be tempted to buy more relevant content.

So as telcos start to think like retailers, they will learn how to associate content assets and will become experts in the efficacy of those associations by measuring and tracking the sales of their “retailed” content products. That expertise will be their core strength and will sort the winners from the losers.

New kinds of retail-focused content management software solutions are now available that approach the on-demand content business from a retailer’s point of view, assisting telcos’ acquisition of content assets.

These solutions are designed to drive inefficiencies out of buying, packaging, and delivering content by enabling telcos to deploy assets in multiple service propositions: for example, concurrent streams and themes (entertainment and news), multiple channels (PC, TV, phone) and different delivery models (subscriptions, PPV, ad-based) -- dictating the need for separation of content from delivery. By having this information at their fingertips they can dynamically package and price content, and promote accordingly.

Typically, these systems are browser-based software solutions. They integrate a number of components that help the management of assets and promotion. These include:

1. Managing the catalog of content (including advertising) and attaching metadata to describe that content to make it easier to package, promote, cross-sell, and deliver.
2. Centralizing all contract information and adding essential metadata tags (such as price, license window, usage rules, etc).
3. Enabling content editors to create schedules, place orders, develop promotions, set price packages, and run service trials and pilots.
4. Ensuring content is dispatched in the right form for the target delivery application.
5. Ensuring content is properly encoded for its destination channel, checking final product assembly, and establishing accurate in and out points.
6. Providing viewer, contract, and advertising data to enable editors to analyze all the relevant KPIs.

Retail-focused content management and the use of personalization can turn the assets on a TV into a profitable, value-added service for the telco and a compelling interactive experience for the viewer. The great news is that IPTV can deliver this model now. Compare that to most digital terrestrial, satellite, and cable providers, and none can match the richness, immediacy, and flexibility of IPTV. So if this is service providers’ key difference, then exploiting it has to be the answer to IPTV’s prayers. Ironically, Cable wants to go IP because they see the potential that we as an industry have largely ignored. The key is to act quickly and deliver the lift in ARPU that IPTV badly needs. If that is executed properly, we will soon all view the IP in IPTV as Interactive Personalized TV! 

About the Author
Andrew Burke is CEO with Amino Communications. He has more than 20 years of experience in Telecommunications and IPTV. For more information, email: osp@aminocom.com or visit www.aminocom.com. 

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