The hottest TV industry news this week was mostly about viewing trends in Latin America. According to Cisco, social TV is growing in Latin America at a rate much faster than the US. What’s also impressive is the fact that over half of Latin America is expected to subscribe to pay TV by 2015. In other news, BBC’s Director of Television is advising broadcasters to develop a technical standard for audio, due to customer complaints regarding loudness.
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Where is Social TV Growing Fastest? Maybe Not Where You Think (Cisco)
Social TV has been one of the most significant TV consumption trends in the past few years. The social TV market is expected to grow to more than $256 billion by 2017. Can you guess where social TV is growing the fastest? It’s easy to assume it would be the US, considering the fact that both Facebook and Twitter are US-based. However, Latin America is demonstrating the fastest growth. In fact, Brazil and Argentina rank higher than the US, and Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela are not far behind. Why do you think viewers in Latin America are embracing social TV faster than viewers in the US?
Latin American Pay TV Penetration to Exceed 50% by 2015 (TTV News)
According to Digital CATV and Dataxis NexTV, 80.36 million households in Latin America are expected to have pay TV by 2015. That translates to a little over half of the region’s households that own TV sets. Eighty percent of the subscribers are expected to predominantly hail from Brazil, followed by Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia. Despite the decline in number of subscribers, analog cable ranks first with 47.5% of subscribers signed up. However, there is much room for DTH and digital cable to gain market share. What are your thoughts on these predictions?
Cohen Welcomes Loudness Standards (Broadband TV News)
BBC’s Director of Television, Danny Cohen, is expressing his interest in developing a technical standard for audio. This will be based on the EBU’s Loudness recommendation R 128, which would solve broadcasters’ loudness issues. In a keynote speech at the BBC Academy, Cohen stressed the fact that broadcasters must pay more attention to the complaints of viewers when it comes to the issue of sound, and called for a “major paradigm shift to loudness mixing.” Do you think new televisions that allow consumers to make their own mix of sound levels would be a hit amongst consumers?
