ITV and BBC in race to launch digital media players

Mark Sweney
Wednesday October 11, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

ITV is going head-to-head with the BBC in the race to launch their digital media players, both of which are due to appear early next year.

ITV has appointed US digital agency Schematic to design a next-generation video-on-demand ITV.com website as well as its own digital media player.

ITV and the BBC are now both aiming to launch their digital media players by the end of March next year. Channel 4 is planning to have its video-on-demand service, incorporating digital media player technology, up and running before the end of this year.

The BBC and Ofcom yesterday extended the deadline for the BBC iPlayer's market impact and public value testing, amid industry criticism of the the original schedule.

The British Interactive Publishers Association, which represents media owners including News International, Emap, Trinity Mirror, IPC, Sky Interactive, the Guardian and Associated New Media, has criticised such a tight assessment deadline over the very first BBC products to go through the process.

"We were notified of the submission timelines and given about a month to respond. The iPlayer has potentially huge ramifications for the commercial sector and therefore needs to be thoroughly impact tested. Equally important is the process itself as other impact assessments on BBC products and services will be benchmarked against the outcome of the current consultation."

Originally, submissions to Ofcom and the BBC for their respective assessments were due at the end of this week with the results due to be published in mid-December.

However, more information about the iPlayer has been requested and so the timetable for the completion of Ofcom's market impact assessment has been put back to Jan 19.

The adjusted timeline gives the public and commercial companies almost two months to submit their views. Overall a final outcome of the review, by Ofcom and the BBC, will be revealed at the end of March - almost three months later than originally scheduled.

ITV is aiming to launch its new web "portal" sometime in the first quarter next year.
The broadband-enabled, on-demand service will enable viewers to watch simulcasts of live ITV shows as well as operating a "catch-up" option to see missed programmes.

ITV also intends to offer exclusive web-only content and a wide range of archive material.
"Broadband is the next mass-market platform for delivery of both television to viewers and services to advertisers," said Jane Marshall, the commercial development director of ITV Consumer.

"With some of the UK's most popular content we are confident ITV has an incredibly strong consumer proposition online."

I think this could be very profitable for both BBC and ITV. This could be the next big thing in terms of gadgets, they both have strong ideas. It depends on which one will appeal to the right target audience for this type of product. This could also be a problem as both companies could lose lots of money if the product is not successful.

Related Media Institutions

My media institution was Google and these relate to it:




Microsoft is one of googles main competitors in many different ways.




AOL Time Warner is also linked as people use the internet to access Google.

Globalisation

Globalisation centres on the increased mobility of goods, services, labour, technology and capital around the world .

AOL Time Warner and Vivendi Universal are among the largest institutions in the world. National and international cultural traditions are merging into a global culture, and new media and genres are developing as a result of this.

The Digital Revolution

This new form of media is reshaping our lifes and expectations. For example we are able to shop globally and send video emails to family around the world.

Technological Convergence
We are continually choosing which technology is best to receive or transmit a particular form. This shows that we are moving forward and soon will be able to access all media from opne single device.

Cultural Convergence
Our cultural perceptions are primarily constucted by the media so we receive the values and ideologoies they establish. This is known as cultural homogenisation. With increased access to global media and increased demand for consumer choice, media organisations are supplying more and more of the media we consume

Cultural Imperialism
Critics argue that the current US media amounts to cultural imperialism because it forces US culture on us through our media consumption. So cultural imperialism ia when other countries from around the world dominate the media.

The Global Village
Media reflect and create the social and cultural world we live in because media producers construct our views of the global events, therefore construct our values and ideologies. In the 1960s Canadian critic Marshall McLuhan stated that the world had become a Global Village, with the media creating this.

UK Online Ad Spend Worth Almost £1bn

Mark Sweney
Wednesday October 4, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

UK internet advertising is worth almost half of TV advertising revenues, with just under £1bn spent in the first six months of this year, according to research.

The amount advertisers spent on the internet was up 40.3% year on year to £917m in the first half of the year - and will overtake press advertising spend before the end of 2006 at its current rate of growth.

According to the report by the Internet Advertising Bureau, the World Advertising Research Centre and PricewaterhouseCoopers, £993.4m was spent on national press advertising in first six months of 2006 - just £76.2m more than online - accounting for an 11.4% share of all ad spend.

The internet accounted for 10.5% of UK ad spend in the first half of 2006 - up from 7.3% for the same period last year.

TV's share of the market declined by 1.3%, to 22.7%, in the first six months of the 2006. UK advertisers spent £1.978bn on TV ads in total during that period.

By comparison, internet spend is now double the size of outdoor in the UK (5.1%), more than twice that of consumer magazines (4.6%) and three times the size of radio advertising (3.4%).
Within the overall internet advertising figures, paid-for search - sponsored listings on search engines such as Google that advertisers pay for when a consumer clicks through to their site - was up 57.7% year on year to £531.3m; a 57.9% share of the online total.

Online display advertising climbed 32.2% to £215.9m, accounting for a 23.5% share.
In the face of a year-on-year fall in traditional press advertising spend, online classified advertising grew 23.4% to £162.2m, taking a 17.7% share of all online revenues.

Recruitment and finance remain the biggest spending categories online. These are followed by strong growth in the entertainment and media and automotive sectors.

Internet ad spend is set to pass the £2bn mark in 2006, if current growth continues. In 2005, advertisers spent £1.4bn online.

The key drivers of growth include the rapid rate of uptake of broadband in the UK - the Office of National Statistics recently released figures showing that 10m UK households were now broadband-enabled.

According to a report by YouGov, the average amount of time spent online by users has climbed to 23 hours a week, also pushing ad spend growth.

Other factors include a continuing boom in online retailing, innovation in creativity and new marketing tools - such as blogs, podcasts and social networking websites - all attracting mass media popularity and more money online from advertisers in general.

Opinion
I think it was inevitable that advertising on the Internet would boom and become more successful then that on any other medium. This is due to the rise in the Internet over recent years and more recently the popularity of broadband. Most Internet advertising is on Google; this shows the power and popularity of Google as an Internet site.