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Seven to launch Hybrid Broadband Broadcast service

Hbb TV is already in use in Europe and Seven will launch a service next year.

2013-05-09_0158The Seven Network will launch a Hybrid Broadcast Broadband service next year.

Hbb TV is already in use in Europe and allows viewers to pay to see non-broadcast content.

Speaking at  an investors presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney yesterday, Seven CEO Tim Worner (pictured) said, “Our aim is to create more and more content that Australians want to see and engage with, and we want to distribute that content wherever it is most profitable.”

He said Seven would have to buy more content for the service, which is currently in trial mode.

HbbTV services are in regular operation in France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, United Kingdom with trials in Ireland, Turkey, China, Russia, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Norway, USA and South East Asia.

Seven will launch its Hbb TV service in Q2 in 2014.

Seven West Media CEO Don Voelte yesterday told investors that the worst was over for the media company this year, announcing a drop in underlying net profit of “a few million” after reporting a net profit of $226.9 million last year. “Even if advertising doesn’t alter its present trends, we believe financial year 2013 was the worst of it for our company on a net-profit-after-tax basis,” he said.

Voelte said more than $100 million in costs had been taken out of the business in the past 10 months and that would contribute more than $75 million in post-tax profits in 2013/14.

He also signalled further cost cuts would follow.

“More for less, content is king and maximising every dollar spent,” he said.

Tim Worner emphasised the importance of Australian drama in Seven’s plans. “Appetite for Australian content is now just a fact of life and, in the case of one of our competitor networks, perhaps a fact of near-death,” he said.

Source: The Australian, SBS.

9 Responses

  1. @ David Knox

    Following my comments below, would it be possible for you to run one of your surveys please, asking how many are satisfied quality wise with their digital service percentage wise compared to analogue,( excluding extra channels) or if they have even lost channels and if they use STB’s and PVR’S etc, and what has been their estimated changeover cost for the service they now receive.

  2. Network Seven should not be permitted to start another such project till they have completed a reliable FTA digital network in all the areas they previously covered with analogue,( ironically analogue was the best it had ever been, and then they Switched It Off ???) now in our area ‘ 7’ usually disappears completely during daylight hours most days, and at night ‘ 7’ is the first to have freezes and pixelation etc. closely followed next by ‘ 10′ with’ 9′ giving a good reliable service 99% of the time.

    When we contact the Switchover Jerks, they simply say they cannot help, because they are Network decisions, saying Stiff Sh_t and we will just have to put up with their rubbish signals, and I have over 2/3 years of wasted communication records, dealing with a mob who were reading straight out the Analogue Phone Switch Off Rort Hand Book, using the exact same B/S excuses and totally misleading promises.

    Regarding the 100 million in savings, is this why their abominable EPG service and lack of programming respect for their viewers, and is now being exposed as a means to drive FTA viewers to their new broadband service?

  3. This needs to be done in consultation with the other networks and the Fed Govt so that they can agree on standards. We don’t want to have one HBB box for Seven’s programs, then have to get another couple when Nine and ABC start up.

    The service delivery will want to be a lot better that Seven’s current internet catchup TV which is pretty flaky.

    Also, as Bazza writes, backhaul is a major issue in a lot of suburbs and Telstra aren’t about to spend money improving it with the NBN on the horizon.

  4. I have a bad feeling that FTA is clutching at straws. I, for one, would not relish the demise of FTA but I think broadband and the internet are going to have a devastating effect.

    You ain’t seen nothing yet Missie… next 5-10 years are going to be turbulent.

  5. Oh goodie… Yet another set top box that will be unusable after the school kids get home because of broadband backhaul congestion. Or will they have the good sense to just run the backend and licence the client to existing home technology providers?

  6. Now if only Telstra could give me ADSL in suburban Wollongong so I could pay to watch it instead of 16 channels of FTA TV, thus reducing FTA audience numbers even further. As with the Telstra T-Box, first you have to put the horse before the cart.

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