IPTV and VOD in Europe: Growing, Slowly but Surely

One thing that should of course be clear is that eliding VOD and IPTV together is dangerous. In Europe at least, in the words of John Bartlett, Managing Director of BCi, a European VOD/IPTV systems integrator, "VOD is about cable, and it’s the cable companies that have to make it work." His company is developing a "Europe-wide" VOD service with an unnamed major partner, he claims, set for a late 2006 debut.

IPTV is still a small submarket in whatever larger market we’re talking about, of course. Current estimates for the global IPTV market, after all, put it at about 2-5 million subscribers worldwide, according to ABI Research, with the biggest concentration in Hong Kong (450,000-plus IPTV subscribers). Although this is very small compared with the number of TV viewers overall, the growth rate is dramatic and points to up to 60 million IPTV subscribers by 2008 and well over 120 million by the end of the decade, say enthusiasts.

"There are a lot of toes in the water," agrees Patrick Christian, managing director and founder of IPTV advertising company Packet Vision. "We still have to make the technology really work and build up the models. I am confident we will, of course."That’s a sentiment echoed by BCi’s Bartlett. "IPTV is coming of age in Europe, and VOD now also has a good intrinsic base as DSL takeup continues. 2006 will be a year of continued growth–come back and talk to us in 2007."

We will, John—but will that much really have changed? That is down to the unlikely combination of fussy European consumers, ever-present local and EU-wide regulators, and of course the technology itself. If nothing else the European story of on-demand services tells us that small is beautiful . . . but can it ever be anything else?