The industry’s focus on the integration of entertainment content and home and personal electronics equipment has never been more intense, as the pace of innovation shifts up several gears.

Against this backdrop, on 10 – 11 June, Futuresource Consulting hosted the Futuresource Entertainment Summit, where prominent industry executives came together in front of an audience of 200 to explore the hardware and content landscapes.

Here are some of the highlights.

Is the Time Now Right for 3D? The opening session took place in the Odeon cinema, Marble Arch, where attendees experienced original 3D content, and Sony, Panasonic, Technicolor and Sky shared their knowledge, experience and views on how soon 3D in the home will become a reality.		Consumer Panel: 3D in the home A panel of consumers who have taken the plunge with high definition and Pay TV movie and sports services shared their reactions to the 3D TV experience and discussed their interest in bringing 3D into their homes.
Head of YouTube UK, Bruce Daisley, provided a roadmap for future online revenue generation and presented his views and experiences, and the strategies that could positively impact online revenues.		Opportunities & Challenges for Broadcasters Over-the-top TV services are bringing new opportunities to broadcasters and advertisers, as well as benefiting the end consumer. In this session leading participants from the broadcast community discussed potential business models for connected TV, and reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of project canvas and HbbTV.

Jim Bottoms, Director & Co-Founder, Futuresource Consulting
The Impact of 3D on the Overall Home Entertainment Business
This presentation reviewed the prospects for the entertainment markets - including hardware, content and delivery platforms - and assessed the future impact of 3D.
The presentation revealed that Futuresource consumer research shows a very strong interest in 3D capability at home, with 70% of adult respondents expressing an interest – even with the need for glasses – and just less than half of all consumers would be willing to buy a new TV. Although TV sets have an active life of well over 10 to 12 years, in reality the life is less than that, as consumers like to upgrade for new features and new designs rather than obsolescence. Many early adopters of HD-ready TVs are now in a position to upgrade, given the massive developments in screen size, power consumption, set thickness, connectivity and other features, said Jim Bottoms.
Looking at the content, Bottoms stated that there is little 3D BD content available at present and while Futuresource expects to see some releases this year it is going to be next year before the retail market really starts to expand. However, the arrival of 3D will help to boost consumer interest in Blu-ray for those not yet convinced to invest for the high definition picture quality alone, helping to boost overall sales of discs moving forward.

Were you unable to attend this event? You can purchase the core presentations and selected conference audio and video. Email irene.chamberlain@futuresource-hq.com.


Sarah Carroll, Director & Co-Founder, Futuresource Consulting
Handheld Connectivity and Convergence: The Market Impact
Handheld devices contributed over 44Bn US dollars to Western European Consumer Electronics revenues last year, according to Sarah Carroll, with the largest contribution coming from mobiles, laptops and netbooks. Despite the functionality overlap, consumers have still been buying dedicated devices which fulfil one particular purpose extremely well; whether that is a camera, a sat nav or a handheld gaming device. The digital camera category has held up reasonably well, though there was a slight slowdown in growth last year, but Futuresource forecasts showed the category will pick up again this year. The personal video player is still an expanding category, with Apple dominating and taking almost a 75% share of the value. Overall, this category will continue to be impacted over time, particularly as smartphones amass greater functionality and prices become lower, due in part to subsidisation by the mobile phone operators.
Laptops continue to be popular, not only for productivity and work-related purposes, but also as entertainment tools, increasingly used for catch-up TV, image sharing and for watching video content. Additionally, netbooks are opening up a new market, and with an average price of 260 Euros they are an entry-level product.
This year saw the launch of the apple iPad, which almost created a new CE category: the smart infotainment device. It will challenge other products within the marketplace, though not the smartphone, and will take market share from dedicated devices like PMPs, eReaders and netbooks. The good news for the content industry is that we are now seeing a widening array of devices across all categories with improved quality, extended battery life, enhanced user interfaces and 3G and wi-fi connectivity, which will translate into greater revenue opportunities for the publishing industry as a whole.

The conference brochure is now available download here.

200+ attendees, ... 40+ speakers... 2 information-packed days...


Alison Casey, Head of Global Content, Futuresource Consulting
Living With Digital
Alison Casey presented key findings from the Futuresource ‘Living With Digital’ consumer study, based on consumer research carried out in the US, UK, France and Germany. Placing the responses in context, consumer spending on packaged, online, TV and mobile entertainment continues to grow as a whole. Packaged media is still going strong, with close to 10Bn Euros spent on packaged entertainment content across Europe last year, compared with only around 70m Euros on digital entertainment. Significant growth in digital will start to develop, but packaged media will continue to dominate for many years to come, said Casey.
Futuresource research is showing that although the technologies and services are in place for the online delivery of entertainment content, mass market consumers will take some time to change their behaviour. Indeed, for the next five years the market will experience much fragmentation, with a number of different business models and purchase triggers being trialled to lure people into making digital purchases. These will include digital copy, BD-Live, managed copy, content pre-loads, digital covermounts and digital kiosks. The future landscape won’t be concerned with transitioning people into digital, as Futuresource research shows that people will continue to buy and rent DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, but they will supplement this with digital downloads, indicating that a large portion of digital revenues will be additive rather than cannibalistic.
Watching online content is now becoming a mass market pastime, with more than half of all Desktop PC, Apple Mac, laptop and MacBook users occasionally or frequently watching video or movies online from the internet, with catch up TV dominating in the UK and USA, though new movies are also playing a key part. However, the propensity to pay for content online is still low.
The complete in-depth ‘Living With Digital’ study is available as a report from Futuresource Consulting. For more details, contact Alison Casey via alison.casey@futuresource-hq.com.

Were you unable to attend this event? You can purchase the core presentations and selected conference audio and video. Email irene.chamberlain@futuresource-hq.com.

Consumer Panel: Connectivity

Feargal Sharkey Making a Living in the Digital Age

Connected TV: Online Reaches the Living Room