A survey conducted by Accenture of 6,000 consumers across the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy found that 46 percent do not understand the term IPTV.
While there is strong consumer interest in the concept of IPTV, the study indicates that IPTV service providers must focus carefully on the marketing and associated end user education to ensure widespread adoption of the service.
"Despite a general lack of understanding about what IPTV means, there is strong consumer interest in the benefits that such a service could bring," said Ray Dogra, global IPTV lead for Accenture's Communications & High Tech practice. "Consumers clearly desire choice, control and the ability to personalize their viewing experience - all of which are the key benefits of an IPTV service."
Some highlights:
- As part of the survey, respondents were asked what they would do to make television better; the top two answers were "having access to a larger number of movies," selected by 30 percent of respondents and "being able to create your own channel to watch programs whenever you want," selected by 26 percent.
- When asked what future benefits would encourage consumers to subscribe to an IPTV service, the greatest number of respondents (55 percent) selected less advertising, followed by the ability to choose specialist programs (47 percent).
- Cost is cited most often as the main barrier to adoption, with 54 percent of respondents indicating they are not willing to pay an extra fee to get an entertainment service that allows them to search for content such as TV, radio shows and music whenever they want.
- Other key concerns slowing the rate of adoption include security issues (38 percent), such as computer viruses and general quality of service (39 percent) - including poor connections.
- Younger adults indicated a greater willingness to adopt and pay for IPTV services than older ones.
- Men indicated a greater interest in IPTV than women.
