Seat at the Table

Even if you don’t work for an IPTV company this may still be of interest…

After seeing IPTV as a phrase pop up more in media such as The New York Times and Business Week, I looked at the trend numbers for IPTV to see if media and public interest is heating up.  It looks like it is.  Part of the coverage is due to new rollouts by the likes of AT&T and Comcast.  But part of the IPTV coverage is the fact that new technologies such as mobile TV or time shifting TV are being reported as IPTV services.  The bottom line is, I believe, growing interest in IPTV stories.    The charts below show the increase in IPTV coverage by general media (done through a headline/abstract search in Factiva), trade media (telecom, tech, consumer tech) and blog posts (I divided them by 100 sincere there where so many) and then the total of the previous three for a complete score.  The line does flatten in November and December.  However, I belive this is due to the end of year slowdown and that we will see a pickup throughout 2007.   I also say this as while there were only 5 ed cal items focusing on IPTV in 2006, there are 48 in 2007 thus showing an increased focus by editors (as searched on Bacon’s).

Why is all this important to public relations professionals that don’t work in IPTV?  Getting the proper attention for a company means showing how it’s relevant for what the media and public are discussing.    If you know IPTV will be seeing more coverage and discussion in 2007, then an analysis should be conducted to see if some messaging should be adjusted to meet this forecast.  Remember, even furniture companies got a boost from big screen HDTV when reporters wrote on the best couches in which to watch the new HD home theater.