Content overload will increase the importance of electronic programme guides

Almost three quarters of all TV households in Western Europe will have access to EPGs by 2014

Thousands of TV programmes, catch-up TV video-on-demand archives, internet-TV services, video-sharing platforms and personal content currently compete for audiences. With such a huge range of content, the electronic programme guide (EPG) is being promoted to the increasingly important role of an entertainment guide for content-overloaded digital living rooms. That’s according to the report ‘EPGs and TV Middleware Applications: Market Assessment and Forecasts to 2014’. The report, a collaboration between media analysts Screen Digest and consulting firm Goldmedia, is supported by Presse-Programm-Service GmbH (pps), one of the leading European providers of programme information.

59 million households in Western Europe were equipped with EPGs at the end of 2008, a penetration of 36 percent of all TV households. This number will grow 19 percent yearly between 2008 and 2014 so that nearly three quarters of all TV households will have access to EPGs in 2014. The report has identified about 300 EPGs on the different platforms in Western Europe. These include EPGs in set-top boxes from pay-TV and infrastructure providers, online EPGs from TV guide magazines, TV platform providers, online providers and mobile EPGs.
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