OTTAWA – The jury is still out on whether the iPad and other tablet devices will irreversibly alter the current Canadian broadcasting environment, but there are signs, even within the seven months since Apple’s iPad was introduced in Canada, that mobile video viewing habits are beginning to transform.
According to research done by CBC/Radio-Canada, a healthy chunk of Canadians are already using devices that allow for time shifting, including 4% who watch TV from a playback device like a DVR. As well, 3% of Canadians already have an iPad, the research indicates.
Mark Allen, director of strategic analysis in CBC’s research department said during the multiplatform panel at the Canadian Media Production Association’s annual Prime Time conference that not only do consumers want choice in programming, they also want to be able to choose when they watch a particular program or video. Recent research shows that 18% of view video content using a DVR, 8% on video on demand and 24% over the Internet.
Raja Khanna, co-CEO of Glassbox Television, noted that since the iPad’s launch in Canada seven months ago, mobile video viewing in the home has doubled. A year ago, it was at about 16% and now it’s 30%, he said, attributing the increase “largely to the iPad.”
Stéphane Bousquet, director of digital enterprises for the National Film Board of Canada, presented some evidence that the iPad and mobile video applications are already having an impact on Canadians’ video viewing habits.
Since launching mobile video on the NFB web site a little more than two years ago, there have been 9.3 million films viewed on nfb.ca with 1.3 million of those views via the NFB’s iPhone app, he said. “Our app has been downloaded and installed over 400,000 times. Of these 400,000 that installed, about 310,000 are Canadian. That’s a huge success for us,” Bousquet added.
The arrival of the iPad changes things, he noted. There have already been 300,000 film views using the iPad app with nearly 100,000 application installs, half of which are in Canada.
“What we found early on, the canvas for the iPad allows a user experience or viewing experience that is much more natural [compared] to smartphones. Since launching the app last June, we found very early on that it was being adopted as quickly as the iPhone app had,” Bousquet said. “I think the NFB iPad app will probably overtake the iPhone app in the long term.”
Despite the apparent changes to consumers’ mobile video viewing behaviour and the potential to leverage these changes to monetize new viewer habits, challenges still remain, particularly as it relates to financing and funding.
The business model for mobile video isn’t there yet, meaning getting financing will be difficult, said Khanna. There’s no return on investment unless the goal of the project is to increase viewers or engage with audiences to a much greater degree. One way to make money though is to replicate the traditional broadcast model, which is to aggregate U.S. programming to run along side Canadian content.
“When you bring in aggregated American content along the side the Canadian content, then all of sudden you have an advertising base upon which to generate revenue,” he said.
Government funding is also difficult, Khanna noted, pointing a finger squarely at the Canada Media Fund. “On the funding side, for us it’s a complete mess. It’s a disaster,” he said, adding that his company doesn’t qualify for a broadcast envelope.
“We’re a broadcaster, doing integrated, cross-platform projects, so we’re cut out of the experimental stream because every one of our projects is a television-related project,” Khanna lamented. “Here’s a company that’s venture funded, we’ve raised private capital to invest in Canadian cross-platform content, and the CMF doesn’t give us one red penny. I have a real issue with that.”
