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The rise in multiplatform content distribution offers new opportunities for content owners/broadcasters to generate added revenue, albeit there are also challenges which often act as barriers to implementing multiscreen solutions.
The broadcasting landscape has gone through many radical transformations over the decades. Innovation has continuously modified the market trends and has started to blur traditional roles and definitions. In this realm of transformations, the television industry too is witnessing a revolution.
From the days of traditional broadcast when carriers decided what and when consumers would watch, today's world has transitioned to a narrow, me-cast approach where consumers decide where, when, and how they want to watch any piece of content. What ignited this? The ubiquity of the Internet, where content is now available anytime, anywhere, as well as the emergence of a plethora of transportable mobile devices that work across networks and content serving platforms. Gone is the dominance of passive linear television broadcasts. Schedule-driven operations are now supplemented by a diversity of new viewing opportunities on smartphones, PDAs, PCs, and connected TVs.
An increasing number of viewers are taking advantage of it which is evident by the fact that video consumption on set-top-boxes and mobile devices is estimated to be equal by 2015, according to IHS. Networks are also looking outside of the United States for TV Everywhere deployment - like Turner Networks' foray into Latin America, which will see 95 percent of its households digital by 2020.
TV Everywhere is considered additive to the TV viewing experience, and consumers prefer that TV Everywhere includes device flexibility, robust content libraries, and smart search options. As a result, delivering video content over multiple screens has become mandatory for content providers and distributors to stay relevant in the market. In India, leading DTH providers such as Tata Sky and Airtel TV have enabled Everywhere TV and Pocket TV respectively that allow their users to view live TV, catch-up TV, and video-on-demand content across devices.
However, though the rise in multiplatform content distribution offers new opportunities for content owners/broadcasters to generate added revenue, there are also challenges related to this emerging technology which often act as barriers to implementing multiscreen solutions.
Challenges
Technology. Delivering video-over-IP networks to multiple devices is fundamentally different from delivering video over...