DRM to grow as CAS market contracts

The digital rights management (DRM) market will become a US$1.2 billion (€910 million) market by 2018, while the related conditional access (CAS) market will decline slightly, dropping below US$1.5 billion annually, according to ABI Research stats.

The research firm tipped the DRM market to grow at an annual rate of 12% with tablet and smartphone video protection key to this market’s “rapid” evolution.

At the same time the pay TV services category, which “most closely mimics the classic CAS market,” represented only about 35% of the total addressable market in 2012, according to ABI.

“Pay TV content protection markets are being turned on their heads as responsibility at delivering IP video content to the consumer is starting to shift from pay TV distributors, such as Comcast, DirecTV, and Sky, to programmers including NBCUniversal, HBO, and ESPN,” said ABI Research practise director Sam Rosen.

“The shift from classic CAS products which, simply speaking, deliver content to a set-top box to more DRM products, which can work with third party smartphones, tablets and connected TVs, has already been well described. Equally surprising is that many of these technologies will become standardised through MPEG-Dash and Ultraviolet such that the responsibility will shift from encryption algorithms to end-to-end system implementation.

“Premium value content protection, as well as live streaming of TV Everywhere, are emerging areas within the DRM landscape; it is these areas where providers need to be focused on differentiation today.”

Read Next