While the ABC's IPTV catch-up service iview continues to grow and gain new users, a new report indicates that iview's success is causing some trouble for the ABC.
Earlier this year, iview set a record of having a total of 15.4 million monthly program plays across all platforms and devices after launching its ABC TV Companion app.
According to the ABC's Director of Television Richard Finlayson, since its establishment in 2009, iview traffic is doubling every 18 months, which currently averages 3.2 million views a month.
He told the ABC's PM radio program that: "There's such a rapid take-up, not only of faster broadband, but also the richness of the content"
But the free catch-up service is becoming increasingly costly for the ABC, something that user-paid IPTV and video-on-demand services like Foxtel Play and EzyFlix.tv don't have to contend with.
The price of IPTV
While the ABC has deals in place with a number of ISPs to offer unmetered content, it still has to pay to supply video content on iview.
While the service cost the ABC about $3 million a year to run at launch, Finlayson explained that it has to pay a certain amount every time a video is played by a user.
He also said that the content distribution network it currently uses costs "in the millions", meaning that the money used there cannot then be reinvested in new content.
But while other services counter such costs through subscription or par-per-view options, Finlayson said that it was not something currently being considered for ABC's free service.
Via: TV Tonight
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