On Demand Television
On demand TV or Video-On-Demand (VOD) is essentially a process of 'enabling' your existing television to directly access & play from a vast video library. Empowering you to select what you want to view. And when. On a 'pay-per-use' basis.

From a technical point of view, VOD is the meeting of 3 technologies which have been developing independently:        
      • Digital Audiovisual Content        
      • Internet        
      • Digital Telecommunications

From a viewer's perspective, VOD is about content: from movies (most obvious) to special programming like "Miss Swimwear 2004 Replay" or "FIFA 2004 Match Replays”.

From a marketer's point, VOD is about enhanced viewer targetability which translates ultimately, to the higher "hit ratios" within the desired demographic.

And from a convergence angle, VOD is proof of the rapid pace of integration between television & computers (read: processing power, display techniques, content storage capacity & bandwidth).

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

High volume, high value content is generated by 2 industries: films & television. So it is essential that such content is available in digital format. So far, the fear of piracy has discouraged content owners from switching over to/ converting to digital content. Nonetheless, everybody accepts that it is inevitable. Digital content can be safeguarded by deploying DRM techniques. Although there is currently a lot of development in this area, there is still a long way to go. (Just like computer / Internet security.)

Ultimately, effective DRM techniques will be required to encourage wide-spread acceptance of digital content, which will lead to proliferation of VOD, which have already started gaining popularity, even though most VOD services are currently "free".

(Note: Mobile telephony is characterized by total lack of security! But this has hardly effected its proliferation!)

Audience of One
VOD viewership is based on the concept of audience of one. Each run (view) by each new viewer is based on a request, with track of billing & payment. Therefore, it is possible to carry a different commercial message during each run, targeted at the consumer.

Media buying on VOD content will undergo a sea change. Especially the current (default) model of strong binding between commercial & content. Future TV commercials would be valid for a specified no. of runs or period, particularly for event sponsorship, and even product placement. After all, VOD service providers may decide to replace the original sponsor credits when they archive a FIFA World Cup match for VOD !

With transperent ad booking processes, VOD technology is ideally placed to offer content owners of old classics a chance to directly share advertising revenues.

New Viewership Metrics
Being content centric rather than time band centric, VOD demands new montoring techniques. To begin with, service providers will have to expose the number of set-top boxes by market, area, locality. Service providers may also need to provide demographic profiles of households where set-top boxes are installed.

Viewership will be monitored by program (not time band). And viewership data may need to be linked to set-top boxes (which will define household demograhics).

The basic monitoring data for a period should comprise of total no. (& minutes) of views by program, by set-top box. This data if coupled with basic set-top box household data, can generate instant,online TRPs by program.

What's more, this data could be culled online from the universe of set-top boxes (instead of the typical scanty sample size). And finally, data may be easily audited.

VOD Update

VOD is being implemented around the world.
U.S. based Comsat offers VOD to its 21 million subscribers (with most of the content available "free" at present.)
U.K. based Napster.com is a pioneer Audio-On-Demand service, which has spawned many similar services & technologies. Napster has recently announced its U.K. based "Digital TV" channel - going by the existing Napster model, it will be surprising if this is not a variation of VOD service!
UK based Channel 5 and North One TV have combined to launch a legal video download store.
Indian ISP VSNL also offers VOD as a service (again, with mostly "free" content at present.) And many more.

Let the Game Begin
VOD but naturally, is expected to extend to online & offline gaming. With revenues coming from subscription / download fees as well as in-game advertising.

Get ready to select your content. And let the game begin.