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Table 5. Entries on the French VoD market (Source DAIDJ & VIALLE (2007))
2002
2006
Moviesystem (Bought by Canal+ in 2004)
Arte VOD
2003-2004
VirginMega (Retailer)
France Telecom: Ma Ligne TV (ADSL operator)
FNAC
2005
Neuf Cegetel (ADSL operator)
Canal+: Canalplay (Ex Moviesystem) (Pay-TV)
Alice (ADSL operator)
Vodéo (Content Aggregator)
MSN (Search engine/Portal)
TF1: TF1vision (Broadcast TV)
Google (Search engine/Portal)
TPS: TPSVOD (Pay-TV)
Yahoo (Search engine/Portal)
France Télévision (Broadcast TV)
Cinezime (Content aggregator)
M6 Video (Broadcast TV)
Universcine (Content aggregator)
Editions Montparnasse (Producer)
Toondra (Content aggregator)
Free (ADSL operator)
Glowria (Retailer)
AOL (ADSL operator)
Imineo (Content aggregator)
Club Internet (ADSL operator)
Paris Première video (Cable TV channel)
Orange (24/24vidéo) (ADSL operator)
knowledge. FNAC has chosen to subcontract its
VoD service to Glowria, while its main competitor
VirginMega has decided to develop its own plat-
form. Glowria is another type of retailer initially
specialized in renting DVDs by Post, following
the model of Netflix in the USA. This company
has invested in a platform and a catalogue of mov-
ies, and distributes its services directly through
its website, through agreements with distributors
reselling its services under their own brand, or
providing its technical platform without provid-
ing movies.
Global players such as Apple or Amazon
also threaten to become competitors. Amazon
has launched its VoD services in the USA, Ama-
zon_Unbox, and may expand its target market
to other countries, such as France. Apple has
launched its iTune Video Store in the USA and
plans its extension to Europe.
Foreign search engine and portal companies
have also entered this market with a different
strategy that we can qualify as “disruptive” by
analogy with the concept of disruptive innovation
by Christensen (1997). Google (with YouTube),
MSN and Yahoo provide free of charge VoD
services which cannot compete in either terms
of quality or choice with paid services. How-
ever, they outperform traditional services in two
dimensions, namely price and the participation
of users. By attracting masses of users viewing
and producing videos, they may pave the way for
more commercial services.
None of these actors possess all the necessary
resources that are necessary for the VoD value
chain. Therefore, they rely, to a variable extent,
on partnerships and alliances (Le Goff & Mouline,
2003). As already mentioned, services providers,
for example, have to partner with media companies
and content providers (Table 6). These alliances
will enable the service providers to deliver not
only attractive digital content to the mass market,
but also customized content to specific customer
segments.
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