The digital media experience is evolving. Today’s consumers want to watch TV and video content without being tied to a fixed program schedule and a home TV. They want true multi-screen services that offer seamless access to the same content and quality of experience (QoE) on any screen, anytime, anywhere.

Research by Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) confirms that the market is ready for multi-screen services. For example, in a 2010 survey of the global youth market, 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.

Alcatel-Lucent also discovered significant interest in multi-screen services when it surveyed consumers in Western Europe in early 2010. Smartphone owners showed particularly high interest (36 percent) in these services, and in features like multi-screen remote TV management (54 percent), pause and resume (46 percent), and program search (43 percent). Their interest suggests that the success of multi-screen services will grow along with smartphone use.

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. With assets like existing media offerings, multi-device reach and subscriber intelligence, network service providers are well positioned to capitalize.

In addition, modeling by Alcatel-Lucent projects that multi-screen services will accelerate revenue growth for service providers.

Alcatel-Lucent’s  multimedia strategy and end-to-end multi-screen solutions enable users to:

• Adapt existing media platforms and extend media services to new screens;
• Expose network assets to trusted partners and develop new media business models;
• Address consumer demand for multi-screen services with cross-screen relevance; and
• Scale media services to the mass market using a terminal agnostic approach.

Alcatel-Lucent says that Multi-Screen Video is an end-to-end media retail solution that can extend fixed TV services to any connected device, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks and PCs.

The Multi-Screen Foundation is an open platform that consolidates media operations and efficiently delivers multimedia services to any screen. It includes common enablers that can help extend the reach and profitability of multimedia services, deploy new services quickly and reliably, and reduce operating costs. It also includes open interfaces through which providers can securely expose select network capabilities to trusted third parties, including content providers, developers and advertisers.

The Digital Media Store is an end-to-end hosted and managed digital media store service that enables service providers to capitalize on the growing content market, capturing new revenues and markets.

Incorporating a complete ecosystem including media content, Alcatel-Lucent’s Digital Media Store creates a flexible framework for efficient collaboration between service providers, application developers, and the media industry.