In Broadcast - July/August 2011 - 18

iPad – The Game-Changer
The worlds of broadcast and technology are horribly fond of clichés. The word game-changer has, sadly fallen into this category, often used to totally overhype technology that plainly fails to meet expectation. Apple’s iPad can certainly not be added to this category.
Joe O’Halloran reports. (Initially published in IBE May/June edition – www.ibeweb.com)
Since it first hit and then flew off shelves at the end of March 2010, the iPad has performed beyond the wildest expectations of many within Apple and without, both in terms of not only shipments but also in terms of re-defining the product category that it fits into and how it has affected the vertical application areas in which it sees use. And yes, at its launch there were those describing the device as a game-changer, a number of them leading luminaries within the broadcast community. And yes also, as far as broadcast is concerned, they could well be right and in unforeseen ways. If there’s one thing that nobody can argue is that the device has been a commercial rip roaring success for Apple who may have needed around 20 million candles to celebrate the machine’s first anniversary. As it reported its Q2, 2011 earnings on 20 April 2011, Apple revealed that it had sold 4.69 million iPads in the quarter, about a million short of many analysts predictions three months earlier as the company struggled to make products to match demand, exacerbated by the rush to get hands on the iPad 2. But many in the broadcast industry had already predicted that the device would be a success. In February 2010, Robert Iger, Disney CEO indeed used the g-word, telling Associated Press: “We think iPad could be a game-changer in terms of enabling us to create essentially new forms of content.” The hype you may expect from the man at the top of the House of Mouse you may feel, but a year later a company making advanced payment solutions, and whose business is all about business, readily concurred. PayWizard Marketing Director Stephen Petheram, said “The iPad has changed the way people consume content, and demonstrates how new technology has the power to change the habits of a lifetime. Traditionally, we watch TV socially, with a set located 10 feet away from where we sit. But the iPad has created its own viewing category: viewing a mobile device socially.” And added Thierry Fautier, Senior Director Convergence Solutions at Harmonic, “The iPad is mainly an entertainment device that has a screen big enough to consume long form video and is portable enough to be taken anywhere…The iPad delivers pristine video experience in a 1280x720p20, which is the current HD format streamed over the internet on services like Hulu, Netflix and YouTube.” Petheram’s description of the device creating its own viewing category is very interesting. This was arguably taking the iPad beyond how Apple foresaw the device’s use. Threatening the business models of content and cable companies was inarguably not seen in the crystal ball in 2010. 2011 has been to date the year of the iPad app in broadcasting, with major broadcasters and content companies keen to establish an iPad play. US Multiple System Operators (MSOs) are showing the way with Time Warner and Cablevision offering their TV line-ups exclusively on iPad for live broadcast. Comcast was another of the first, in the form of Xfinity app, to explore the platform. Yet things have not gone to plan. Nobody told the content companies just how they were supposed to share the supposed opportunities, and not long after launch of Xfinity a number of leading content firms, with whom the MSO has existing cable services deals, sent Comcast legal papers warning that it did have the right to stream content to tablets under existing agreements. And then the genie was out of the bottle. Time Warner Cable received cease-anddesist notices from Viacom, FOX and Discovery to pull their content from its iPad TV streaming app. Defending itself, Time Warner Cable filed a request for declaratory judgment relating to Viacom cable networks. Said Marc LawrenceApfelbaum, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Time Warner Cable, “We have steadfastly maintained that we have the rights to allow our customers to view this programming in their homes, over our cable systems, without artificial limits on the screens they can use to do so... With over 360,000 downloads of our TWCableTV app, it is clear that our customers welcome the convenience and flexibility our new app provides.” The issue is ongoing but just look at the number of downloads that the company gained in a hugely short period of time. It’s this success, and it can’t be described as anything else, that makes the desire of content firms to get their piece of the action seem fair. As another indication as to just how popular such apps are, Cablevision is claiming that its Optimum App for iPad has surpassed 50,000 consumer downloads since being added to the Apple App Store on April 2, 2011. Even the BBC is going to get on board the iPad money making merrygo-round. In March 2011, Director General Mark Thompson confirmed the BBC’s ongoing commitment to the concept of apps, such as those the BBC had developed for the iPhone and other smartphones, and most recently the iPad and other tablets, citing usage statistics for the iPlayer. “The greatest month-on-month growth now is not on PCs or cable TVs but on iPads, iPhone, other smartphones and games consoles,” he revealed. Then the head of the licence-fee

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In Broadcast - July/August 2011

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