Imagenio beats Sogecable, InOut TV and many others…

Telefonica Spain CEO has just announced several improvements of its broadband offer. Among them, in response to Sogecable iPlus PVR service, Imagenio has launched its own one. As any PVR it allows you to stop (shift TV) and fast forward (commercials!), but also has a quite unique feature, it allows you to access to the MAJORITY OF past 7 days programs of TVE, La2, Cuatro and Tele5 (probably movies have been set aside). Lets comment on this last feature:

First point: feature attractiveness. Past TV (as this feature is called) will probably have to be served remotely. Rest of the features are supported via a 160 Gb PVR, but in order to record 4 channels during 7 days you need more than Terabyte! Considering this is a network feature, why paying for a home-based PVR? It is true that a PVR will permit you to record rest of channels and that keep those recordings for ever. But on the other hand you will save 200€!!

Second point: Legal risks. Spanish copyright law does not permit to make money redistributing videos without prior consent of emission right owners. The only way to skip this consent is by providing a network PVR service where each customer has its personal copy of the videos in a remote server. Assuming this turnaround as too costly, it means that it has bought some emission rights to the 4 broadcasters.

Third and last remark. Is this a broadcasters threat or opportunity? PVR penetration in Spain has remained sluggish. There hasn’t been any market mover like Direct TV / TiVo in USA. Sogecable has just announced its iPlus PVR, but will probably not subsidise it heavily considering its financial constraints. Broadcasters are obviously not interested in killing advertising revenues… Or are they? This is what I’m not sure to understand from those that have signed a deal with Imagenio. They are obviously trying to get more value from their content. Probably they will be paid (sooner or later) per each narrowcast by Imagenio subscribers. But will this compensate the damage that they will make in the long run to their advertising revenues?

Quick acid test: Each Spaniard watches TV 220 min/day. Share of these broadcasters can be around 50%. That leads to 670 hours of TV watched per year and inhabitant. Considering 38.5 Million Spaniards above 14 years that represents almost 26 Bn hours of TV (what a waste of time!!) These broadcasters may be around 2 Bn Eur advertising revenues. One divided by the other means that each broadcaster should get 8 euro cents for each hour viewed. Is this the case? Who knows…

What is certain is that if this service become a success, the rest of broadcasters (Antena 3 and La Sexta) will have to do something. If not, they will end up loosing viewers without getting any pay-tv revenues in exchange. Reaction will proably come in the next months. Lets keep an eye on them…

Tags: Antena 3, Cuatro, Imagenio, IPTV, La Sexta, PVR, Sogecable, Television, TVE