S3 Survey Shows Pay TV Operators Growing as Software Companies
Pay TV operators are becoming more nimble with multiscreen TV software releases. That information comes from a survey of nearly 30 U.S. and European pay TV operators and suppliers created by S3 Group, a Dublin, Ireland-based company that creates automated video service testing and validation tools. Half of those surveyed said they're deploying multiscreen TV software releases more often in 2015 than the year before. Of that group, 46 percent are increasing software releases by over 20 percent and 39 percent are increasing them from 11 to 20 percent.
Other findings show that 41 percent see service availability as the top priority, 32 percent see speed at the top priority, and 27 percent said efficiency. While pay TV services have typically offered between 1 and 4 software releases per year, 30 percent offered between 5 and 12 releases in 2014.
As S3 Group is a testing company, it's no surprise that testing was part of the survey: 78 percent of those surveyed said that automated testing helped them achieve faster release times.
“Unlike yesteryear, pay TV providers’ reliability and innovation is no longer driven by the physical plant, but rather by software code,” says John Maguire, S3 Group's chief strategy officer for TV technology. “Video service providers are striving to shorten innovation cycles, test and launch services faster, and make updates more frequently."
The findings are part of S3's TV Platforms 2015 Report, available as a free download (registration required).
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