However, in the short-term outlook, nearly 52% of respondents say they are not confident in the ability of IPTV to generate significant revenues within the next 12 months, compared to 20% of respondents saying they are confident or very confident, and 28% somewhat to fairly confident, that IPTV will generate significant revenues within 12 months.

Other Highlights from the Accenture/EIU Survey:

On the principal revenue source for IPTV:

• 46% of the industry executives surveyed selected advertising
• 74% of network operators say they believe that subscription fees for premium content will provide the largest recurring revenue stream, followed by basic content subscription fees and then advertising fees.

On reasons for pursuing the IPTV market: 

• 42% cited new revenue streams, followed by acquiring new customers (28%) and increasing sale of broadband access connections (21%).
• 64% of all respondents and 74% of network operators surveyed said they believe that discounted service bundles provide the greatest enticement to buy IPTV. 
• The ability to move content between devices was also cited as an important enticement, selected by 
• 38% of respondents cited the ability to move content between devices as an important enticement 
• 31% cited the convenience of a single bill for multiple services

On obstacles to IPTV adoption: 

• 25% of respondents said that the primary short-term obstacle to IPTV adoption is a quality-of-service issue relating to unproven architectures, low bandwidth and other technology issues. 

On the types of companies most likely to generate revenue from IPTV: 

• 87% of respondents selected content providers, followed by telecommunications providers (72%).  
• 69% of respondents said that traditional broadcasters have the least to gain from IPTV

For more details of the study, visit www.accenture.com/iptvmonitor3

The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 341 media executives in October 2006 to identify their beliefs about the potential of IPTV. The survey, conducted via email, covered 46 countries in three major geographic regions, with 35 percent of respondents based in Europe, 33 percent based in the Americas and 32 percent based in the Asia-Pacific region. 46% of respondents were C-level executives, and the other 54% consisted of senior managers such as heads of business units and directors of marketing or planning.