Number of Internet TV Viewers Approaches 2 Million

By Kim Tong-hyung

Staff Reporter

The number of viewers of live broadband television is nearing 2 million in Korea, according to telecommunications companies that operate the service, which is touted among the major contenders in future household entertainment.

As of Tuesday, the combined number of Internet protocol television (IPTV) customers of KT, SK Broadband and LG Telecom reached about 1.99 million. The 2 million mark is expected to be passed by the end of the week, since the three companies have been signing roughly 1,500 to 2,000 new subscribers every day.

The number of Internet television viewers has become significantly larger, at more than 2.6 million, when counting the companies' subscribers for video-on-demand (VOD) services that were launched earlier than live IPTV, which were introduced in January of last year.

KT, the county's largest telephone and Internet provider and No. 2 wireless carrier, currently controls more than half of the country's IPTV viewers with over 1.1 million customers.

SK Broadband, the fixed-line telephony and broadband Internet unit of SK Telecom, the largest mobile telephony operator, listed some 498,000 IPTV subscribers, while LG Telecom numbered around 387,000.

The companies expect the growth of the market to gain pace in the coming months as they add to their pool of content and applications. KT alone expects its IPTV registration to reach 2 million viewers by the end of the year.

Although the popularity of IPTV has grown slower than companies and government officials had expected, it still managed a quicker start than previous pay-television platforms.

According to statistics by the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country's regulator for broadcasting and telecommunications, it took nine months for the number of live IPTV viewers to reach 1 million, which came in October last year.

It took more than four years for the cable television providers to total 1 million viewers combined, and nearly two years for both satellite and digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) mobile television to reach the same number.

Of course, IPTV still pales in comparison to the presence of cable television, which reaches over 16 million Korean homes, but the telecommunications companies claim that IPTV viewership is quickly approaching the necessary size to generate serious traction.

IPTV, or the delivery of television services over broadband networks, provides viewers with a wealth of interactive features, including video-on-demand (VOD), e-commerce and other data services on top of conventional television programming.

Although the market has been picking up lately, the companies are still continuing to struggle to motivate television viewers to switch to IPTV. And the viewers who have taken the plunge complain about paying for premium for services that they say don't offer much to watch in programming.

This has the telecommunications operators considering more ways to bulk up their content.

KT is looking to do for broadband television what Apple did for mobile phones by introducing a more "open" version of its IPTV offering, providing a platform for content developers to create and market their products over its broadcasting network.

Establishing a strong developer network appears critical for the IPTV operators to reduce their reliance on retransmitted national television and to offer a wider variety of interactive, data-enabled content.

The technology industry's push toward three-dimensional (3D) television might also inject a new jolt into the IPTV market. SK Broadband seems eager to get out of the gate early in 3D, as it continues to negotiate deals to purchase 3D content from entertainment and media companies worldwide.

인터넷 TV 가입자 200만 육박

KT, SKT와 LGT 3사의 인터넷 TV 가입자가 199만 명이 됐다. 매일 1,500에서 2,000명의 새 가입자를 받는걸 감안하면 이번 주 내에 200만 명을 돌파할 것으로 예상된다.

정부와 통신사들이 예상했던 것 보다는 느리지만 케이블 TV가입자가 1백 만 명이 되는데 4년이 걸렸고 DMB가 2년이 걸린 것을 보아 9개 월 만에 1백만을 보유한 IPTV는 아주 빠른 성장이다.

통신사들이 계속 IPTV 변환을 제안하는 가운데 KT는 애플사에서 핸드폰 이용자에게 소개했던 시스템을 도입할 예정이다.

이번 3D TV가 나오면서 SK는 3D를 IPTV 에 도입에 주력하고 있다.