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Discuss this article (0 Comments)Jumping into the spotlight
by ArabianBusiness.com staff writer on Saturday, 25 October 2008
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"We will be launching a STB in the US and Canada in November of this year, which will enable users to view JumpTV content on their television receivers," explains Hegazi, adding that he sees strong potential for the service in the Middle East.
"Many people live in high rise buildings and look for alternative distribution methods than satellite. We think the next market after North America would be either the UK or Saudi Arabia. We have had some discussions along those lines already," reveals Hegazi.
He also admits that ideally this service would be offered in partnership with an incumbent telco.
"Leveraging the relationship with a telco would be good value and it would also allow us to bring the product to market faster than we could otherwise," Hegazi explains. "In terms of the Middle East, I believe KSA and UAE are prime markets [for the STB offering].
We are confident the STB would prove popular but we will have to ensure that we have the correct set up with the local providers and have all the relationships in place with regards to distribution. If we can offer this at the right cost, then it should prove quite appealing to consumers.
Hegazi points to another JumpTV venture as an example of what they are looking to achieve with Talfazat. Operated by NeuLion, KyLinTV has around 30,000 subscribers, and according to Hegazi, the largest VOD library in the world standing at 30,000 hours and counting. The service is available in Cantonese and Mandarin, with the majority of viewers based outside mainland China.
"We launched Talfazat about a month ago and the feedback we've received from our broadcast partners has so far been positive," says Hegazi. "We added a few thousand subscribers in the first few days even though some of the content was pending and there were still some alterations to be made to the site.
We work with most of the top content providers in the region and we are in contact with a few more with the intention of adding more channels. Hopefully they will come through within the next few quarters, but we are not exclusively focused on our live TV channels. We are also looking to expand our library of VOD content. We currently have 2000 hours of content in our archives."
JumpTV provides all the content and digital rights management, billing and customer services for broadcasters with revenues derived from subscription fees and advertising shared between both parties.
Whether Middle East viewers will be prepared to pay subscription fees for online access to channels they can receive FTA by satellite, remains to be seen.
US consumer survey
TV remains king
It is hard to foresee a time when the nuclear family will settle down in front of a notebook PC together to watch their favourite movie. Despite the recent improvements in quality and quantity of content available online, this situation appears unlikely to change in the near future.
That assertion has recently been backed up by research from The Nielsen Company on behalf of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM).
The survey showed that 94 percent adults who are also subscribed to cable or satellite services would rather watch traditional television. Despite this 35 percent of respondents said they had watched a programme online, originally aired on TV.
TV remains king
It is hard to foresee a time when the nuclear family will settle down in front of a notebook PC together to watch their favourite movie. Despite the recent improvements in quality and quantity of content available online, this situation appears unlikely to change in the near future.
That assertion has recently been backed up by research from The Nielsen Company on behalf of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM).
The survey showed that 94 percent adults who are also subscribed to cable or satellite services would rather watch traditional television. Despite this 35 percent of respondents said they had watched a programme online, originally aired on TV.
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