Factors affecting adoption of interactive television in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The world we live in today is greatly influenced by mass media. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that mass media is the most powerful force in our contemporary life that has an unstoppable force and capacity to drive the behaviour of people, influence the policies of a government, cause business empires to rise or fall and dictate the technologies that takes us to the future. The evolution of mass media from its inception to the recent past has been restricted by technology to be largely a uni-directional media. The newspapers and the television, which had as its potential target audiences scaling from a large province in a country to an ultimate global viewership, delivered to the mass market what the majority of the audience would be receptive of. Advances in technology have changed this scenario and the wide availability of interactive television allows operators to offer tailor-made program packages to selected customer segments and subscribers to customize their program selections based on a completely individual preferences list. With interactive television becoming available in Sri Lanka, it is pertinent to study the interplay between market potential and sociocultural impact of this very important mass media technology. The research presented in this thesis is an in-depth study of factors affecting adoption of interactive television in Sri Lanka from the dual perspectives of subscriber and operator. One of the most noteworthy findings presented in this research thesis is the fallacy of the conventional wisdom of content driving the market. In respect of interactive television programming in Sri Lanka, the research clearly indicates this often repeated belief to be wrong. The researcher also found the local interactive television industry to be misguided in its assessment of affordability of consumers. While entry costs to the technology remains relatively affordable, the belief of operators that consumers are within an affordability range for costs in terms of selective programming is proven to be false. The research also highlights the impact on adoption of interactive television in Sri Lanka due to limited knowledge possessed by consumers on the technology. Thisscenario is further aggravated as operators have limited knowledge on the consumer attitudes to interactive television. This has led to a negative feedback structure wherein consumer uptake of interactive television is further retarded due to limited offerings while on the supply side, the operators await further expansion of customer base before investing in more services. The research presented in this thesis empirically proves the need for operators to have greater focus on cultural issues in programming instead of variety of programming to overcome adoption barriers.