Internet Protocol Television in Germany - Analysing Business Models for Market Success

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: 86 %, Cologne Business School Köln, 57 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The medium Television in Germany looks back on a more than 70-years old history. Since the first regular television programme was broadcasted in 1935 - which has been the first worldwide - television was subject of permanent change. Broadcasting and recording techniques, end devices, public perception and acceptance and content developed significantly over the decades. Starting with a single channel broadcasting black and white free-to-air, today consumers with the proper equipment can receive hundreds or even thousands of different channels that serve every imaginable need. Free-to-air broadcasting was little by little replaced by cable and satellite broadcasting, starting in 1983 respectively in 1988. Hand in hand with the digitisation era a new medium arose in the 1990's: broadcasting via the internet. Due to high bandwidth requirements this distribution channel developed slowly. Even nowadays this represents the bottleneck of the potential "TV of the future", called Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). However, IPTV has yet earned an early round of applause which is legitimated by the numerous advantages it offers for the consumer as well as for the distributer, content provider and advertiser.