Australia - Pay TV - Digital Services

Synopsis

Foxtel and Austar launched new digital pay TV services in early 2004. Digital TV delivering more content won’t be enough to entice new customers. Attractive pricing and customer choice are the key ingredients to success. It is also quite conceivable that the future of pay TV may be more dependent on advertising income than on subscriber income. Digital TV enables the targeting of individual customers. Add to this Foxtel’s virtual monopoly to the set-top box and you might start to see where the money could come from. The report includes an analysis as well as comments from our readers.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. The start of digital TV
• 3. Paul Budde Analysis of Foxtel Digital – January 2004
  • 3.1 Digital content not enough to grow the market
  • 3.2 Churn: customers vote with their feet
  • 3.3 Fundamental changes are required
• 4. Customer comments, analyses and suggestions for Foxtel
  • 4.1 On price and content
  • 4.2 Snap poll on price and content
  • 4.3 Expensive programming deals
  • 4.4 Cost of digital revolution
  • 4.5 Content monopoly
  • 4.6 What else?
  • 4.7 WA government
  • 4.8 Good babysitting service
  • 4.9 Foxtel vs broadband
• 5. i-advertising
  • 5.1 The business case
  • 5.2 Individually addressed advertisements
  • 5.3 Permission-based models
  • 5.4 Monopolistic rents for users
  • 5.5 Foxtel plans to start in 2005
• 6. Set-top boxes
• 7. Personal Video Recorders
• 8. Electronic Program Guide
• 9. Related reports