NBC exec: IPTV is no big deal

IPTV is on everyone's radar at the National Broadcasters Association (NAB) conference in Las Vegas this week, but broadcasters don't seem to understand how much of a game changer IPTV could be. "Traditionally we had cable, then we had satellite come in as a competitive platform, and now we're seeing this third kind of platform [IPTV] for multi-channel and on-demand kind of content," said NBC's VP of technology standards, policy and strategy, Glenn Reitmeier. Reitmeier's statement seems to echo that many of the broadcasters at NAB who think IPTV is more relevant for on-demand content players.

But what the broadcast crowd needs to grasp is IPTV's effect on ad revenue. The streams of information between viewer and service provider are much bigger for IPTV, meaning the service provider can accumulate data on end users' habits--even the number of times they change the volume. Tracking the effectiveness of ads is a crucial offering that cable and satellite can't match at this point. That could change in the future, but for now the specter of IPTV looms large on the advertising front. This serves as a wake-up call for the IPTV industry to educate the content providers first before educating the subscribers about what is IPTV.

For more on NAB and broadcasters' take on IPTV:
- see this article from Light Reading