Today’s consumers are adopting a more flexible viewing experience that includes connected devices like smartphones, PCs, tablets and netbooks, according to Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) officials, who add that consumers want more than the ability to watch content on different devices, “they want true multi-screen services that offer seamless access to the same content and quality of experience on any screen, anytime, anywhere.”

As research by Alcatel-Lucent confirms, the market is ready for multi-screen. A recent survey of the global youth market found that 71 percent of respondents said they would use a multi-screen service; 65 percent would willingly pay for it. In addition, 64 percent of respondents would remain loyal to their current provider if it offered multi-screen services.

According to the research, respondents were most interested in multi-screen time-shifting (80 percent), program guide (72 percent) and PVR (71 percent) features, and supported payment through triple-play bundles (45 percent) and subscription premiums (41 percent).

Multi-screen services are already reaching the market, and major media industry players – including content providers, broadcasters, advertisers and device vendors – “are vying for market share,” the paper finds, adding that “with assets like existing media offerings, multi-device reach and subscriber intelligence, network service providers are well positioned to capitalize.”

Modeling by Alcatel-Lucent projects that multi-screen services will accelerate revenue growth for service providers. Why is this? Because as a service provider, you don’t need motivation to make the jump to multi-screen – we presume, anyway. Assuming you’re motivated, all you need, really, are products that enable you to attract and retain multi-screen subscribers, secure a central role in the multimedia value chain, and generate sustainable media revenue.

Alcatel-Lucent can help you with this, as their Multimedia Strategy and end-to-end multi-screen solutions enable you to adapt your existing media platforms and extend your media services to new screens, expose your network assets to trusted partners and develop new media business models, address consumer demand for multi-screen services with true cross-screen relevance and scale your media services to the mass market using a terminal agnostic approach.