UK Retail Giant Tesco To Sell Own Connected TVs and Hybrid Set Top Boxes

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Friday, 29 June 2012 09:29

Colin Mann over at Advanced Television has written a solid piece on UK Retail Giant Tesco's foray into the connected TV and hybrid STB market starting this month.

Quoting Michael Comish, CEO of digital movie service blinkbox which is 80 per cent-owned by the retailer at the Future of Broadcasting Summit in London on ‘Developing New Funding Models for the Digital Age’.

Comish suggested that in the digital broadband age, there was a move to digital from physical. “It’s about access, not ownership nowadays,” he explained, suggesting that 2012 would be a tipping point in the shift to digital. He warned that such developments had to contend with resistance from the studios. “They are past-masters as slowing down technology,” he observed.

“We’re not competing against Sky,” he added. He felt that there were a number of players in the retail, subscription and rental sector who were all likely to thrive with different business models.

In particular, he suggested that Sky, with its planned NOW TV OTT service was targeting those homes it wasn’t currently in, whereas Tesco’s target was those homes it was currently in and who could benefit from the cloud-based digital ownership scheme it had launched with blinkbox, whereby customers who purchase a DVD or Blu-ray will also own the movie online. The new service is exclusive to customers enrolled in the store’s Clubcard loyalty scheme.