Leader: VOD players need content and convenience to succeed
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Virgin Media’s challenge is to combine nice-to-have features with must-have content
What matters more: content or convenience? It’s a question that has been uppermost in my mind recently as I try out LoveFilm’s new streaming service, in this case delivered via a widget on a Sony Blu-ray player.
Simon Calver, LoveFilm CEO, says in our Profile it’s a deliberate decision to only offer a fraction of the firm’s 65,000 titles on the new service. Certainly it’s easy to use at ten feet. But such convenience is worth nothing if there aren’t any movies I want to see. Although I’ve added to my film education by finally watching the still-extraordinary Battle of Algiers, overall the service doesn’t yet feel like a panoply of film riches.
Sky understands this to devastating effect, drawing viewers in with, for example, premium sports content and making access a doddle with a Sky+ service programmable from your mobile – including, as of this week, Android phones. Content or convenience: you can’t have one without the other. Indeed, on balance, content wins, as confirmed by Nigel Walley’s pithy column on the strange resilience of clunky old red button.
In this context, Virgin’s strategy for its new VOD player is interesting, or even quixotic. Yes, it’s bringing TiVo-style convenience to multiplatform TV; pausing a programme so you can resume watching it on another device is kind of cool. Virgin has more than 4,600 hours of on-demand content, but its challenge is to combine nice-to-have features with must-have content – exclusive content you really can’t get elsewhere. Anything else risks being incremental rather than game-changing.
And the stakes are getting higher. Project Canvas’s new chairman, Kip Meek, as well as appointing an MD, is keen to bring Five back on board. But even before Canvas hits the living room, Sky is launching its Anytime+ service, bringing additional programming into the back of Sky boxes.
In the battle for VOD, ease of use may create crucial advantage. If so, Virgin arguably needs to be even bolder and faster, providing content wherever viewers have access to a screen. Boardroom to boffins: all leave is cancelled.