February 2010

COMCAST OFFERS TV ON THE 'NET

Internationally, consumers are including the internet, as a source for relaxed entertainment at home. The number of US broadband households watching movies and TV shows via the Internet, has doubled in the last year. Currently over 25 million US broadband households regularly watch full-length TV shows online, while over 20 million watch movies online. Clearly, the dividing line between the internet and television is blurring. A recent survey showed that in the USA, an increasing number of consumers simultaneously surf the internet, even as they watch TV!

FANCAST

In mid December 2009, Comcast - the world's largest MSO launched Fancast Xfinity TV. The service demonstrates how cable companies are trying to attract and retain subscribers by integrating video entertainment services and the Internet. Fancast Xfinity TV lets subscribers watch their favorite TV shows online, at any convenient schedule.

This is the world's largest distribution of TV content over the internet. Xfinity TV will offer about 2,000 hours of programming from about 30 cable channels, including premium movie services like HBO. The programs Fancast content available to a user, will depend on his cable package. If a Fancast user subscribers to HBO, he can receive HBO content on Fancast.

Comcast has about 23.8 million cable TV subscribers and 15.7 million broadband Internet customers. The Xfinity TV service is available free to Comcast customers who have subscribed to both - its cable television and broadband Internet service. Six months later, the company plans to extend the service to its only cable subscribers - who don't also buy their Internet access from Comcast.

3 COMPUTER ACCESS

Fancast is delivered through a web browser plugin. Comcast subscribers can authorise upto 3 computers to receive the Fancast content & watch cable shows on any of the registered computers.

In future, Comcast plans to make Fancast accessible on other devices, such as smartphones.
Comcast is also working on an enhanced parental control feature for its Fancast delivery, and plans to offer adult & pornographic content too, within a year.

MSO VS TELCOC

In the US, MSOs and Telcos are both addressing each other's customers. Telcos have traditionally seen the internet as their turf, and they are fighting back.

VERIZON'S FIOS VIDEO SERVICE

Leading US telephone company (telco) Verizon Communications has in fact, sometime ago, launched its TV-on-the-Internet service - FiOS. Currently available in 16 states, FiOS provides data widgets that deliver Internet news, weather, and traffic reports to the TV screen, and a feature that lets a customer remotely program a digital video recorder through a smartphone or Internet browser.

Verizon Communications spokesman Phil Santoro said Comcast is arriving late to the online party. For years, Verizon has offered ESPN 360, a sports video channel available online to Verizon Internet subscribers. Subscribers to Verizon's FiOS video service can also get online access to New York Yankees-related programming, shows from the Disney Channel, and motion pictures from the Epix channel.

Meanwhile, about 500 Verizon customers are testing FIOS TV Online, a service similar to Xfinity TV. For now, the FIOS testers can use the service to view shows only from cable channels TBS and TNT, but if results are positive, Verizon will put a larger selection of programming online.

POSSIBLE BOOST FOR FANCAST

Comcast is currently negotiating to acquire entertainment company NBC Universal. If the deal goes through, it will give Comcast a major stake in Hulu, an Internet site that shows thousands of hours of TV shows, mostly from the NBC, CBS, and Fox broadcast networks. Hulu's shows usually feature commercials and are available free to US users.

"We see the 2 sites as being quite compatible and complementary," Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media told the press.

A 2008 US survey found that 34% of US adults watched some kind of Internet video every week, but only 8% of them watched an entire TV show online. "What is being used significantly online is short-form video" like the brief clips found at YouTube.com, the most popular online video site, he said.

Clearly, initial interest is for short clips from the internet, but as download speeds improve, and better compression provides high quality video streaming, the internet could rapidly emerge as a viable delivery alternate for TV content & the TV will served a converged purpose for website and conventional TV content viewing. n