Telecoms Tech

The success that many streaming providers such as Netflix, have achieved online has led them to offer truly multi-screen experiences via smartphones and tablets. This move has begun to affect the pay-TV business, with the threat of consumers reducing or ending their pay-TV services in favor of internet streaming services.

The rise of on-demand content and inevitable death of linear scheduled broadcasting has perhaps been pushed forward as YouTube announces monthly paid channels.

Already a favourite service in many households, Netflix has become an indispensable service for on-demand entertainment consumption. With successful ventures into original programming, where do they expand from here?

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, American companies like Netflix, Hulu, Apple and Amazon helped to drive the over-the-top (OTT) video entertainment market past $8 billion in 2012.
The three largest markets -- North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific experienced year-over-year growth in excess of 50 percent in 2012.

It’s an interesting combination; a payment solution within your smart TV. Yet, for South Korean manufacturer LG and payments facilitator PayPal, it has only been officially announced this week. So is this a match made in heaven?

Apple reported Q4 earnings recently, and despite having a record quarter, the company is taking some serious heat on Wall Street. Investors are nervous that Apple has lost its touch and I’ve already spoken before about how their innovation process is stuck in neutral, which led many to speculate that a Smart TV will be Apple's way of digging themselves out of this rut.

U.S. broadband subscriptions are forecast to reach the same level as pay-TV subscriptions in 2016. Meanwhile, American cable and satellite TV service providers will soon reach a critical point in their evolution -- where future success will hinge on the adoption of their TV Everywhere services.

Samsung is set to showcase its new Smart TV design at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2013 show in Las Vegas on January 8-11, with the rumour mill going into overdrive as to what features it will contain.