With more and more people “cutting the cord” and moving away from traditional cable and satellite television providers in favor of Internet streaming, Internet protocol television (IPTV) is clearly the space to be in for providers of live streaming content. The reasons for this shift are numerous, but they boil down to the greater freedom IPTV provides both for streaming content providers and consumers in so many ways. Cable and satellite television simply cannot compete with the much lower costs, simpler setup and global reach of IPTV.
Navigating the path to live streaming your event through IPTV doesn’t have to be daunting, though. In fact, it’s probably a lot easier than you think — especially when you use the TikiLIVE platform. Create your own channels to stream your high-definition video to mobile devices and set-top boxes like Roku and AppleTV with minimal investment and technical expertise. Let’s take a look at some of the key advantages that IPTV with TikiLIVE has over cable or satellite for your live streaming events.
1. Cost
A live broadcast on cable or satellite is an expensive proposition, both for broadcasters and viewers. Broadcasting on cable or satellite requires buying airtime from the provider, who has very high infrastructural and promotional expenses and generally isn’t interested in taking risks. As a result, the cost of mounting a live broadcast via cable or satellite is beyond the reach of most independent broadcasters. To reach viewers via cable and satellite providers, the viewers must first be paying substantial monthly fees inflated by padding the channel lineup with unwanted channels, often with a 2-year commitment required. Special events on cable or satellite are almost always presented as pay per view, imposing further fees on the viewer.
With TikiLIVE, IPTV operating costs are well within the reach of independent broadcasters streaming live events. Other than TikiLIVE’s low subscriber rates for use of our content delivery platform, the only production expenses you are likely to incur are for buying the camera of your choice and possibly for Internet connectivity. Unless you present your live stream as a pay-per-view event (which TikiLIVE supports with easy-to-use ticketing features), viewers will be able to see your event only for the cost of their monthly Internet service.
2. Audience size
With cable and satellite TV, your audience is constrained by the number of people who subscribe to these services. If your event is pay per view, your audience size is further limited to people who subscribe to the service and are willing to pay additional fees for the event. With TikiLIVE, your potential audience is anyone around the world with an Internet-enabled mobile device, computer or digital set-top box.
3. Equipment
Mounting a televised event via cable or satellite requires a lot of the expensive, specialized cameras and production equipment used in traditional broadcasting, and viewers need the cable or satellite vendor’s proprietary receiver to watch it. TikiLIVE’s HD Wave broadcasting suite delivers high-definition video that can even be captured by a smartphone or tablet that you already have. The video is encoded for playback on any mobile device with an HTML5-enabled player or any set-top box that the viewer is already using to watch content from providers like Netflix or Hulu Plus.
4. Portability
With cable and satellite, the viewer is effectively tied to the receiver connected to the TV to watch content. Providers are making inroads into offering some of their content to subscribers on mobile devices, but these offerings are often limited. While live streaming events are certainly viewable on TVs with set-top boxes, they are also viewable without restriction on any Internet-enabled mobile device.
5. Promotion
With cable and satellite providers, you often see commercials for their offerings on TV channels, or print advertising in magazines or on subways, or direct mail pieces. These forms of advertising are expensive, and who ultimately pays for them? Not just advertisers, but also the content producers who buy air time, and the customers who buy subscriptions.
With IPTV, your potential audience is by definition an Internet-savvy bunch, so TikiLIVE gives you tools to reach them via their social networks. With just a few clicks, you can promote your live streaming event via Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You can embed videos that you create to promote your event in these networks and on YouTube, where they can easily be shared to increase your potential audience.
6. Pay-per-view
When a cable or satellite company mounts a pay-per-view event, the event producer does not set the ticket price. That price is set by the provider based on a host of factors. And as we recently saw with the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao boxing match, the price can skyrocket, making the event prohibitively expensive for many.
TikiLIVE’s ticketing features put the ticket pricing power in the hands of the broadcaster — you. Easily track tickets sold and tally funds collected for your pay-per-view event. Without all of the overhead of a cable or satellite company, you can keep your ticket prices affordable.
7. Independence
In the end, this is possibly the greatest benefit that TikiLIVE IPTV can offer you. With TikiLIVE, you stage the live streaming event that YOU want, not what the cable or satellite providers’ executive boards or advertisers want. You schedule the event, you promote the event, you set the picket price (if any) for the event, you showcase the subject matter that you feel most passionate about. TikiLIVE puts the power in your hands to put your personal stamp on every aspect of your live streaming event and put it in front of more viewers worldwide than the cable and satellite companies could ever dream of. And it enables you to do this without technical expertise, specialized equipment, or steep financial investment.
Sign up for a TikiLIVE account now or call us at (305) 743-6722 to learn more about our broadcasting platform.
