BT is falling short of Vision target

chris

BT'S VIDEO-ON-DEMAND service, Vision, is falling short of expectations and almost certainly won't hit the company's target of having between two and three million couch potatoes signed up by the end of next year.

BT boss Ian Livingstone set the mark when the telco launched the IPTV system, but with only 443,000 users signed up by the end of June it seems that might have been a little too ambitious.

BT Vision's chief executive Marc Watson has now revised that number down to just one million and extended the deadline for meeting that figure indefinitely,

Despite the success of media services offered by its rivals such as Sky and Virgin Media, BT has been unable to turn its massive broadband audience on to Vision.

Watson puts the blame on Sky's domination of premier sports as well as the lack of a coherent and alluring marketing message to punters.

"We have not yet found the best way of explaining what the benefits are to consumers, and what [BT Vision] stands for," he told the Financial Times.

Watson hopes that Ofcom will soon bring in rules that will force Sky to hand over access to its premium content to BT Vision, giving it a much needed hook to entice a wave of new sign-ups.

The uptake of web-based open video streaming services such as BBC Iplayer and Four-on-Demand has almost certainly contributed to the poor adoption of BT's Vision, especially as these alternatives become available across more and more devices.


Source:theinquirer

rolfw

Might also have something to do with the fact that only BT customers can use the BT Vision box, it won't even operate as a Freeview box unless it is connected via a BTInternet broadband connection.

So if you leave BT Broadband, the Vision box is a doorstop, if you are not with BT, there is no opportunity to try a box and see what it works like.

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Channel Hopper

And you need a decent aerial in a good location, which about 50% of the population won't stump up for when there are other options for connecting the TV to.

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