The second session of the day closed with two speakers and a panel discussion, although the information that came from them was minor.
First was Carl Hibbert, associate director at Futuresource. His data shows that, as of the end of 2014, 31% of UK homes have smart TVs, and 68% of consumers in these homes use connected TVs multiple times a week. There are also 24 million tablets in use in the country; 43% of tablet owners use their devices to watch free online video, 23% watch live TV and 19% access SVoD services. The demand for connectivity is growing, said Hibbert.
Live TV is still the primary reception method for 59% of consumers – although this is down from 64% in Q4’14. The UK is slowly moving to an on-demand market, and SVoD use is increasing. More than 75% of the UK’s 6 million SVoD subscribers also take pay-TV services: 4.6 million people. The issue here is that consumers will soon need to search multiple services to find the content that they want to watch, which leads to frustration.
The disaggregation of content needs to come full circle, said Hibbert – which, ironically, is where we are now with pay-TV. We need a single management platform. Consumers will continue to choose services based on the ease of use/access; brand awareness; and content quality.
“What is the video service type that you watch most frequently?”
