Deutsche Telekom has decided that to thrive as a Pay TV operator in the long-term it must become a virtual STB on third-party Smart TVs, in collaboration with the TV makers, or follow the Sky Glass path and design and retail its own television sets. Pedro Bandeira, Vice President Product and New Business, Europe at DT, made it clear recently that the aggregation battleground is moving to the glass itself, and Smart TV makers are well placed to be the first UI seen. Direct-to-glass strategies can counter this, but today the STB remains central to his company’s CPE requirements.
There is no long-term future for the standard Pay TV operator ‘app among apps’ model as seen on Smart TVs today, however, as this cannot support Deutsche Telekom’s big vision for what an aggregator should look like in future. Bandeira made it clear that the role of super-aggregator, multi-app subscriptions manager and holistic content discovery agent requires an elevated status for the Pay TV television screen presence. DT needs to be the primary app, not just another app, on any television, he believes.
Bandeira was speaking at Connected TV World Summit in London, and you can read about his ‘future aggregator’ and ‘future of operator CPE’ vision in a separate story, here.
Related content:
Cyta encouraging operator-as-an-app usage by selling Smart TVs on two-year instalment plan