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Is TiVo going to be a Wiz in Australia?
July 29, 2008
So Tivo is finally coming to Australian shores, not before time I hear you say - but do we really have the breadth of broadcast content that makes TiVo such a compelling device in the USA?
I'll let others make the call on features and capabilities of TiVo versus the obvious competitors – Foxtel iQ and the various brands of PVRs (Personal Video Recorders), but I wanted to see if there was a groundswell of interest in the TiVo leading up to its official release date (July 29th).
The chart below looks at the share of traffic to three key sites in the category – TiVo, Foxtel iQ and Beyonwiz over the past 12 weeks.
No doubt the limitation of the Foxtel iQ, being available only in conjunction with a Foxtel subscription will limit its penetration and interest, but surprisingly the interest in TiVo had been outshone by the PVR releases from Beyonwiz until last week.
A review of the search terms delivering traffic to these sites highlight the domination of branded searches, with 23 of the top 25 terms in June '08 incorporating a brand name. Broader generic terms, such as pvr, are not strong drivers of traffic to these sites and do not generate substantial volumes.
Using the Hitwise Clickstream tool I decided to review from the sources of traffic to each site. This uncovered a few interesting aspects of the competitive landscape. The matrix below highlights the main upstream industries and their respective contributions.
| Upstream Industry | TiVo | Beyonwiz | Foxtel iQ |
| Computers and Internet - Search Engines | 54.31% | 19.16% | 11.68% |
| Entertainment | 9.87% | 18.57% | 70.68% |
| Television | 7.90% | 10.78% | 68.51% |
| Computers and Internet - Social Networking and Forums | 7.81% | 15.15% | - |
| Shopping and Classifieds | 6.25% | 11.21% | 6.05% |
| News and Media | 5.94% | 16.71% | - |
| Created 28/07/08. Copyright 1998-2008 Hitwise Pty Ltd | |||
Foxtel iQ is dependent upon the parent site to generate a large majority of its traffic, and so strategies to broaden the base of traffic are important as currently it receives traffic from only 24 categories, versus 59 for TiVo and Beyonwiz.
TiVo is receiving a strong amount of traffic from search engines, highlighted the curiosity around TiVo's impending launch. Beyonwiz receives their traffic from a broad base of industries while Foxtel iQ is highly dependent upon their parent site (www.foxtel.com.au) to generate visitation.
Seven Network (TiVo's Australian partner) will undoubtedly launch a strong marketing campaign over the coming weeks to make the TiVo the must have home entertainment accessory, using the Olympics broadcast as a base to drive uptake. Now that the 3G iPhone has been launched there is a bit of space in the market to get some message cut through.
All competitive brands need to drive their competitive strategies, develop the category and the brands within, use the social media landscape to experiment and get their products spoken about while developing broader sources of traffic to drive growth.
To sit back now, could mean being sidelined by TiVo and to a lesser extent Foxtel iQ and having to wait for the next large technology leap to get access to a market that has been slow on the uptake of Digital TV thanks to previous government decisions. The problem is that the next big thing could be Apple TV done properly!
On a side note there has been a bit of commentary about the recently released TV being compared with an earlier Apple iPod commercial. You make up your own mind;
Tivo Ad
Apple iPod Ad
Posted by Alan Long at 05:57 PM
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In Categories Entertainment | Foxtel | Pay TV | Television | TiVo
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Comments
Paul,
Thanks for the comment.
The overall increase in search activity has been driven by the interest in TiVo and to a lesser degree the Beyonwiz. Apple TV and Media Center have not had a large impact in terms of search or traffic share.
Cheers
Alan
Posted by Alan Long | July 30, 2008 11:52 AM
Hey Alan,
thanks for the insight.
I wonder if I could take it from a slightly different slant as I am curious to know what sort of impact that the enormous torrent community has on the pay to view services.
Numerous software platforms have sprung up and are extensively supported on the internet that allow view on demand of both legitimate and illegal content, and judging on the number of subscribers to these services, it can hardly go unnoticed. I am certainly not condoning these mediums, but surly the ability to select and watch your desired content with a minimum of delay and no cost has had ill effects on some of the previously mentioned services...
We can even see the corporate giant Adobe taking a leaf from the torrent world with their release of the "Adobe media Player". Very similar in layout and performance to some of the more well know torrent clients. It offers a mix of free and paid content in the native flash flv format which can be streamed or downloaded for viewing.
This will hardly have a huge impact on the Australian market in the short term with a majority of the tier 1 content reserved for its US audience, but with such media giants as CBS already on board I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before there is another option for the Australian market that provides greater flexibility and functionality for those of us who are already choking on the current limited offerings.
Posted by Kris Kyle | July 30, 2008 03:39 PM
Hi Kris,
I think you raise a really interesting point, and worthy of reviewing. The challenge facing the entertainment producers and distributors around the globe is massive. I don't have figures on P2P at this point but will look into it.
Cheers
Alan
Posted by Alan Long | July 31, 2008 10:15 AM
Alan,
An insightful article indeed. I wonder if the penetration of Foxtel in the home market will continue to apply pressure to the somewhat crippled hardware and limited program depth available in this country via free to air (+digital).
Looking forward to following these trends on your excellent new blog.
Have any of the tech companies impacted this space to date with "apple TV" "Windows Media Centre" or "PVR"'s increased also per chance? I would also understand if these numbers were significantly lessch heavily marketed commercial brands as TiVo and IQ.
As a side note and maybe worthy of my own blog, us industry geeks(!) are aware that input and output are part of computing life and jargon. I am fascinated that marketing people have also discovered the wonders of input/output or "IO", and have managed to add it to existing acronyms such as "Video/Audio" and "television" which of course gives us the TiVo and the VaIo, magic!
Thanks again Alan, fine post, I am now off in my piece of Swatch-Mercedes-ART car to buy some carbon credits for the hot air I just exhumed via my keyboard.
Posted by Paul Bishop | July 29, 2008 09:13 PM