Skip to main content

Why Channel-Centric Pay-TV is Becoming Obsolete

Most subscribers of traditional pay-TV services have evolved beyond the channel-centric constraints of legacy video entertainment offerings. As a result, global unit shipments of personal video recorder (PVR) products set a new record in 2009, and that benchmark is expected to be eclipsed by 2010 shipments.

Fueled by growing consumer demand to time-shift television programming and thereby avoid the inherent limitations of linear programs on broadcast channels, pay-TV service providers are deploying millions of new PVR products each year.

In-Stat is forecasting that the global annual PVR product unit shipments will surpass 50 million by 2014.

"Historically, the PVR product segment has been a growth market, even though most unit shipments were restricted to just a few countries," says Mike Paxton, Principal Analyst at In-Stat.

Over the past year PVR products are becoming more common in places such as Latin America and Eastern Europe, a development that bodes well for the near-term growth prospects of the PVR market.

However, the PVR adoption phenomenon is likely short-lived, as more consumers discover the freedom that's gained from embracing on-demand IP video offerings. Perhaps the channel-centric delivery model is becoming obsolete, and it's happening sooner than industry analysts had anticipated.

In-Stat's latest market study revealed the following:

- Worldwide revenues in 2010 are projected to increase significantly, rising by over $1.2 billion in comparison to 2009 revenues.

- A key market driver for PVR products in the near-future will be digital terrestrial television (DDT) set top boxes that integrate PVR capabilities.

- PVR-enabled satellite set top boxes continue to be the largest PVR product segment, followed by cable set top boxes.

- In 2009, Motorola was the leading PVR product manufacturer with over 4.9 million PVR product unit shipments.

Popular posts from this blog

AI-Driven Data Center Liquid Cooling Demand

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and hyperscale cloud computing is fundamentally reshaping data center infrastructure, and liquid cooling is emerging as an indispensable solution. As traditional air-cooled systems reach their physical limits, the IT industry is under pressure to adopt more efficient thermal management strategies to meet growing demands, while complying with stringent environmental regulations. Liquid Cooling Market Development The latest ABI Research analysis reveals momentum in liquid cooling adoption. Installations are forecast to quadruple between 2023 and 2030. The market will reach $3.7 billion in value by the decade's end, with a CAGR of 22 percent. The urgency behind these numbers becomes clear when examining energy metrics: liquid cooling systems demonstrate 40 percent greater energy efficiency when compared to conventional air-cooling architectures, while simultaneously enabling ~300-500 percent increases in computational density per rac...