Sunrise UPC wants only one TV platform in future
After the merger of Sunrise and UPC, the second largest telecom group wants to reduce the number of different TV platforms. In the future, there will be only one TV platform, says Group CEO André Krause in an interview with the AWP news agency.
Customers could switch from the aging Sunrise TV platform to UPC's modern TV platform. The fact that only one TV platform is now being operated has to do, among other things, with the changes to the ""Common Tariff 12"" (GT12), which will newly regulate the compensation of TV broadcasters for time-shifted TV as of next year, Krause explains.
Last year, TV broadcasters, telecom companies and collecting societies reached a compromise in the long dispute over time-shifted TV. The bone of contention was that viewers would fast-forward through the commercials on replay TV. The advertising industry is not happy about this. The TV broadcasters complained about revenue losses because the compensation for time-shifted TV paid by the telecom providers was too low. The telecom providers rejected this.
The compromise preserves replay TV in Switzerland, while abroad broadcasts can only be viewed retrospectively in the media library of the respective TV station. But viewers here will have to swallow a toad.
Starting next year, they will either be presented with forced commercial clips of just under two minutes if they want to skip commercial blocks. According to earlier information, viewers will then be able to jump to exactly where the film continues with one click. Or viewers will have to pay more.
Exact design still unclear
The exact design and implementation as well as the prices are not yet clear, neither at Swisscom nor at Sunrise. There will be different offers, which will be presented at the appropriate time, says the Sunrise UPC boss, without wanting to give details. Technically, the implementation of the new GT12 is enormously complex.
At the end of October, Swisscom's head of private customers, Dirk Wierzbitzki, had spoken of the market leader offering the skipping of advertising for a fee. The prices have not yet been set, he said.
Sunrise UPC CEO Krause defends the new regulation with compulsory advertising as a "good compromise" in an interview with AWP. The more time-shifted TV is watched, the less impact the advertising has, the less revenue the private broadcasters can generate and the less attractive content they can afford. "Then at some point you'll only have pay channels," either the public broadcasters or providers like Netflix with subscription fees, Krause says.
Krause disputes that the industry is encouraging viewers to migrate to streaming services like Netflix or Amazon with its forced advertising: "I think it's just the opposite." With streaming services, he says, the willingness to switch increases over time once people have seen everything they find interesting. That's why the new GT12 is not a Pyrrhic victory for the private broadcasters, he says, because they can still afford attractive content. (SDA)
