The Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) hosted an Industry Breakfast with Magnus Ternsjö, CEO of UPC Ireland on the morning of June 24 with IFTA Members consisting of industry representatives, distributors, stakeholders, Producers and Directors in attendance.
Welcomed by Academy CEO Áine Moriarty, Magnus spoke about developments in Irish film and television content across the industry and cited opportunities for Irish content across a range of UPC platforms, in particular My Prime, along with an insight into UPC developments.
UPC Ireland (part of Liberty Global) employs more than 1100 staff in Ireland directly and indirectly and delivers over 1.1 million TV, broadband and phone services into Irish homes every day.
Speaking about current trends in the Irish film and TV market, Mr Ternsjö delivered two pieces of good news – that “content is still king” and that despite technological advances there is still an “insatiable demand for home grown content”.
Statistics given by Mr Ternsjö about the Market in Ireland included:
- 93% of homes have a TV and the average viewing time of over 3.5 hours daily
- Live linear viewership accounts for 77% of consumption with linear recordings accounting for a further 8%
- Over 71% of all homes still subscribe to a pay TV provider
- The level of uptake of Netflix in Ireland is the highest in the Liberty markets where the service is available
- One quarter of the monthly data traffic on UPC’s broadband network is attributable to UPC’s subscribers consuming Netflix content
This explosion in data traffic is reflected in figures from INEX that indicate that between 2009 and 2014, Ireland’s monthly internet traffic had grown by a multiple of 12 times and in percentage terms that’s 1000%. Despite this trend, Irish content is more popular than ever. On a monthly basis, over a fifth of UPC customers access RTE content via the RTE player and three of the top five most viewed movies on the UPC platform were Irish films that included ‘The Guard’, ‘What Richard Did’ and ‘Garage’.
Commercially speaking, UPC Ireland has always had strong partnerships with Irish broadcasters and supporting indigenous content providers was one of the key drivers behind the launch of the My Prime service in March this year. The service, which is free to UPC subscribers, is similar to Netflix but includes a vast array of Irish movies, box sets, and children’s content such as ‘Love/Hate’, ‘Damo & Ivor’ and ‘Raw’. The level of interest in Irish content is again demonstrated by the fact that over 25% of those that can access the My Prime service have chosen to do so on a monthly basis since launching in March. These users have consumed an average of 360k streams per month.
The UPC Ireland CEO also gave his insights into where he sees the market evolving to over the next couple of years.
Magnus stated that between 2012 and 2014, there was almost a three-fold increase in the homes that had a Smart TV and a tablet/iPad and the explosion in devices means consumers can find new ways to access content. This was reflected in a 34% increase in the number of homes that used their TV, or a device connected to their TV, to access an on demand service. Another shift in consumer behaviour related to the number of homes that had six or more internet enabled devices in the home. This jumped from 9% in 2012 to 32% in 2014. TV consumption patterns are also changing with 79% of viewers indicating they are on a laptop/table/smartphone while also watching TV.
In response to these changes, UPC Ireland hope to launch Replay TV very soon. This is a service that will allow customers to access their EPG up to seven days in the past, which means customers can catch up on any content they may have missed.
They will also launch ‘Start-Over’, a service that will allow customers to watch a programme that has already started and watch it from the beginning. Mr Ternsjö also mentioned that UPC Ireland are actively looking at the advertising space to determine if they can introduce services that are mutually beneficial to advertisers and themselves, and at the same time offer a better, more targeted entertainment service to their subscribers. In this regard, they recently launched a Dynamic Ad Insertion solution that allows content owners to insert ads in video on demand assets.
For more information on the IFTA Industry Breakfast with Magnus Ternsjö, click here.
