With IP Video, Content is not King, according to Freesky Research

ARLINGTON, Va, August 8, 2007 – While the ADSL2+ and VDSL buildouts of the last three years have rapidly expanded the addressable market for IPTV, placing studio content into data packets is unlikely to slow the decline of broadcast TV’s prime time viewership. With the rise of blogging, social networking, and Flash Video, audiences are becoming more valuable relative to content, as the YouTube and MySpace acquisitions have shown. With investors in media companies increasingly focused on who is watching, not what is being watched, the fixed satellite industry will face growing pressure to develop wholesale services that reach 18-34 year olds, according to a forthcoming report by Freesky Research.

‘Fundamentally, FSS providers have to decide if they are in the content distribution business, or if they are strictly in the satellite service business. Because if it’s the former, something more dramatic than an IPTV distribution service will be needed to deal with competition from terrestrial CDNs,” according to David Gross, author of the report. “Growing 50% per year, Akamai is about 12-18 months from surpassing Intelsat in revenue. With broadcast TV posting record low ratings, FSS providers need to develop services, based on Flash Video, user-generated content, or another technology, that will allow them to reach the younger demographics which are abandoning traditional TV, regardless of whether it’s Flat-Screen, IP or HD.”

The forthcoming report “IPTV and the Future of Satellite Content Distribution” quantifies the addressable market for IPTV service through detailed wireline network statistics, while considering the opportunities for growth distributing short video clips over satellite networks. It will be available for purchase through the company’s website at http://www.freeskyresearch.com.

About Freesky Research

Based in the Washington, DC area, Freesky Research is a market analysis firm covering data communications in air & space.

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