On Building a Successful IPTV Business Model based on Personalized IPTV Content & Services Brownson Obaridoa Obele*†, Seung Hee Han†, Jun Kyun Choi*, Minho Kang*, *School of Information and Communications Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 305-732, South Korea Tel: +82-42-350-6208, Fax: +82-42-350-6230 E-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected] † Korea Telecom (KT) Network R&D Laboratory, Daejeon 305-811, South Korea Tel: +82-42-870-8429, Fax: +82-42-870-8549, E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract—The Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service provides rich multimedia services over IP networks and is widely believed to be the next killer application over the Internet. It is generating a lot of interest, especially in potential service providers who are eager to develop successful business models that will ensure their survival in this emerging market. We believe that the success of an IPTV business will depend to a large extent on the ability of the service providers to provide the right IPTV contents and services to the right subscribers, at the right time and in a way that is most convenient and appealing to the subscribers (more specifically, the end-users). In this paper, therefore, we present an IPTV business model, which we believe will guarantee service providers’ success and survival. The business model is based on the efficient packaging, advertising and delivery of IPTV contents and services to end-users. Index Terms—IPTV Contents/Service, IPTV Business Models
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I. INTRODUCTION
HE Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) [1-11] service is envisaged to provide rich multimedia services over all-IP networks to subscribers (more specifically, end-users) all over the world. It is being standardized by the International Telecommunications Union on Telecommunications (ITU-T). Considering that an enormous number of contents and services will be available on IPTV networks, the key to the survival of IPTV service providers will be how efficiently they are able to help end-users to filter through all the various contents and services to select those that they (end-users) desire and are most appropriate for them [5-11]. This is because service providers will only make money if end-users consume the contents and services that the service providers have to offer. Navigating through a large number of channels and content titles, which will be available on an IPTV network to find desirable ones (so-called Service Navigation) maybe too time consuming and frustrating for consumers; and may thus discourage them from embracing IPTV services. Should this happen, the service providers will be the greatest losers. It is therefore imperative that while content producers concentrate on producing high quality contents, service providers (which we define in this
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paper as being responsible for the packaging, advertising, delivering and selling of IPTV contents and services in addition to provisioning the IPTV network) will have to device efficient ways of making end-users aware of the availability of these contents and services; attracting them to enjoy the contents and services; and making it easy for them to navigate to the services and contents and start enjoying them. Today’s content consumers are highly fragmented and different, so the old ways of enticing them may no longer guarantee the desired success and revenue generation [5-11]. The easier and more convenient it is for end-users to become aware of and enjoy the contents and services that they are interested in, the more attracted they will be to the IPTV service and the more successful service providers (and content producers) will be [5-11]. The Figure 1, which shows the results of a survey conducted to investigate how end-users feel about personalized (targeted) advertisements and their usage behavior profiling by service providers [11] reveals that a greater percentage of end-users are comfortable with it and so they will willingly cooperate. In current IPTV specifications [2-4], the major IPTV service players are classified as Content Providers, Service Providers, Network Providers and End-users. For the business model that we envisage, however, service providers will be responsible for provisioning the network and for efficiently packaging, advertising and delivering contents and services to end-users
Figure 1. End-user comfort with personalized adverts and end user profiling by service providers
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and so they would, in addition, be referred to as content providers; while those who make the contents would be referred to as the content producers (not providers). And so, the major players in our IPTV business model will now be Content Producers, Service (and Content/Network) Providers, and End-users, Figure 2. The service provider will handle the packaging and advertising functions because the service provider is best positioned to know the end-users (in terms of their usage profiles, usage history, preferences etc.) so they can better package the contents (more details are provided in subsequent sections) to match the needs of the end-users. The content producers will create basic metadata to go with their contents, while service providers will create metadata that will enable the service providers to more closely match end-user needs. For end-users, they will be expected to help the service provider to know exactly what they need by completing surveys, evaluating contents after enjoying them, etc. To reflect our business model, we modified the standard IPTV architecture in [3] as shown in Figure 3. The modified IPTV architecture now only shows the functions of the three major players that we propose – End-User Functions, Service Provider Functions and Content Producer Functions. So in line with our business model, the End-User Functions will be handled at the end-user end of the network, the Application and Management Functions will be handled by the Service Provider, while the Content Producer Functions will be handled by the Content Producer. Further, unlike in [3], the application function now contains metadata sources and preparation functions, so-called User Specific Metadata Sources and Content & User Specific Metadata Preparation Functions, because for instance, in our model, the service provider will use the extra information that it will obtain about the end-users to create more end-user specific metadata as we shall elaborate on in subsequent sections. In the rest of this paper, we look at the various changes that if made to the way contents are currently being packaged, advertised and delivered; will lead to a revenue generating IPTV business model that will help to ensure both the survival of IPTV service providers and the success of IPTV businesses. II. MAIN FEATURES OF THE IPTV BUSINESS MODEL In this section, relying on the findings and conclusions contained in reputable white papers [7-11], we look at how successful IPTV business models that are based on the efficient packaging, advertising and delivery of IPTV contents and services can be built. In principle, we look at changes, which if made to the way, for instance, contents are currently being packaged, advertised and delivered, could result not only in higher revenues for IPTV businesses but could also result in higher revenues for current (conventional) content-based businesses as well. A. Assigning IDs that closely match the end-user In consideration of the fact that in reality, the end-users (actual consumers of the IPTV contents and services) are usually different from the subscriber (the person that signed-up for the IPTV service), it is imperative that the IDs that are used for AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) before an end-user is allowed to consume a service or content, is closely
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Figure 2. IPTV Business Major Players and Metadata service overview based on our model.
matched to the actual person who is trying to consume the service or content (i.e., the end-user) and not to the subscriber. This way, service providers will be able to know who exactly in a subscriber’s household enjoys specific contents and services. With a more specific knowledge like this, targeted advertising, parental control and end-user behavior profiling etc. will be more accurate, precise, and thus more effective. In terms of implementing this in an IPTV business model, the service provider may reserve parts of a subscriber’s ID for allocation to members of his or her household; where a household refers to the members of a family, for a home subscription and to the staff of an office or company, for a business subscription. This approach is quite similar to IP address allocation where a company is assigned a network address, which is usually a group of IP addresses, and then the company in turn assigns individual IP addresses to its computers; so subscribers will be allocated a subscriber ID, parts of which will then be allocated to members of the subscriber’s household. Accordingly, for instance, if the subscriber ID is a decimal number, then different last digits of the subscriber ID may be allocated to different members of the subscriber’s household. The end-user matching IDs will be used, for example, by metadata services to closely match actual end-users with metadata, by the service and content protection (SCP) functions to authenticate end-user access, and by the service user profile functional block etc. B. User Customizable Menu A critical user requirement for IPTV service as listed in the ITU-T specifications is that the Set-Top Box (STB) should be easy to use and that customers should spend as little time as possible navigating through and/or searching for desired contents. The STB being a device that connects to a television and an external source of signal, turning the signal into IPTV content which is then displayed on the television screen. One sure way of meeting this requirement is to make the STB menus user customizable. If this is done, users will be able to arrange menu options in the order in which they most frequently use them. So for example, a user who usually likes to see what comedies are currently available can get to the comedy menu probably with a single button press as against having to navigate through the current fixed menu systems that the service providers, at least here in Korea are presently deploying with their STBs. If users can customize their menus, then they will
find it a lot more comfortable and quicker to get around an IPTV service. This will help to keep them glued to the service which will in turn translate into increased revenue for the service provider. Moreover, user customized menus will help provide more information about what users need and enjoy the most, so for instance, the service provider can upload to a user’s STB menu list, more of the specific category of contents that the user has been observed to enjoy the most. The application related functions of Figure 3 can easily be used to facilitate this recommended customizable menu feature. C. Conventional contents or IPTV-specific contents? The argument here is if it will make good business sense for IPTV services to offer conventional contents, that is, offer the same kinds of contents that are currently being offered on other service platforms. Our opinion similar to those shared in [5-11] is that it will not. This is in consideration of the customer being the centre point. Consumers will be very slow and indeed reluctant to switch to a new service platform if it is going to offer them the same services that they are currently enjoying; especially if they are presently satisfied with the quality of their present service platform. To be successful and have the desired impact, IPTV has to cut out a market for itself. IPTV contents need to have a unique feel and touch, for instance, in terms of movie subtitles, movie classifications, advertisements, and etc.; all of these we shall elaborate on subsequently. The basic idea should be creating a situation where consumers love the contents and services that IPTV offers but they can only enjoy them if they subscribe to an IPTV service. While content producers expectedly have the most role to play in creating desirable IPTV-specific contents, their efforts will yield better results if service providers and consumers are given opportunities to contribute to the creation of contents and services that will help to make IPTV standout. For this to make the most impact, all the major players of the proposed business model will have to work collaboratively together. D. Innovative Content Classification Paradigms Needed To enable IPTV have the desired unique feel and touch, it will be necessary to deviate from the conventional way of simply classifying, for instance, movies into comedy, action, horror, etc. To enhance Service Navigation (the process of presenting information that allows end-users to discover, select and consume services), we would have to go deeper and include, for example, the names of the movie actors, the setting (cities in which the movie was shot or the cities that were mentioned in the movie, and even languages spoken in the movie), and the storyline (e.g. high school life, terrorism, robbery, forbidden love, political conspiracy, etc.) as metadata types. The names of the actors are important because end-users (the authors included) would simply want to see a movie, not because it is an action movie, but because it stares, for example Will Smith. Furthermore, end-users in South Korea would love to watch a movie like “Yes Man”, because in this American movie, Jim Carrey spoke Korean language in some scenes (the movie is actually popular in Korea for this reason). In other cases, end-users would love to see a movie simply because it is about terrorism, slave trade, global warming, daily family life, etc. 811
without necessarily minding if it is a comedy, action or documentary. More so, as a Korean for example, despite the country in which I am currently living, if there is a Russian movie featuring Korea/Koreans, I would surely want to see it, not minding its genre etc. It is for these reasons that we believe that going deeper to create metadata that closely match end-user profiles, preferences etc., will enhance service navigation functions, and make it easier for end-users to quickly find the contents or services that they are interested in; consume them and thus yield the much needed income for service providers. Based on this business model, therefore, subscribers would, in addition to other vital information, be required to register their country(s) of origin and even the language(s) that they speak when signing-up for an IPTV service with a service provider (another reason why service providers are better positioned to know what end-users may want to enjoy). This information will be used to match contents that will be advertised to the subscriber’s STB. In addition, end-user logs (usage profiles, histories etc.) maintained by service providers will be used to keep track of movie actors whose movies, the end-user has watched. This is so that when such movie stars release new movies, the movies will be advertised to that subscriber’s STB. And for instance, using the fact that in the movie “Yes Man”, Korean language was spoken, the movie can be advertised to a subscriber whose nativity is Korean, even though that subscriber may currently be living, for example, in Dubai. Going deeper than current conventional methods and being innovative will enable IPTV service providers to more closely match and satisfy end-users needs, which are critical to the success of any business, IPTV businesses being no exception. This feature is fully dependent on the contents and metadata sources, which will be managed by both the content producers and the service providers. The bulk however lies with the service provider who will have to do most of the innovation in classification paradigm using information gathered about end-user preferences etc. E. De-regionalization of Contents To make IPTV services truly global, IPTV contents have to be de-regionalized. Looking at movies as a typical example, a core requirement for making IPTV services truly global will be to have a basic subtitle set that all movies should have. This is because due to the regionalization of contents, for example movies, it is almost impossible to find in Korea, a Korean movie that has an English subtitle (even though English language is regarded as the second language in Korea). What this means is that if I am a subscriber who lives in the US and while in the US, I can watch and enjoy Korean movies (e.g. dramas and soap operas) because at least they have English subtitles, if I come to Korea, I will not be able to continue enjoying such contents. The STB should be able to recognize that although I am in Korea, I don’t speak Korean language and so the version of the content that should be delivered to me should be one with an English subtitle. Similarly, for foreigners who reside in Korea, because when signing up for the IPTV service, they indicated their spoken languages, the version of the video that is delivered to them, should allow them the option of choosing a suitable
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