An Empirical Study on Consumer Acceptance of IPTV Service

In recent years, IPTV attracts great attention along with the digital convergence of communication and media technologies. IPTV combines the advantages of TV and Internet and changes our lifestyle dramatically. In addition, the IPTV service is capable of becoming a new business model which has huge growth potentials in technology-converging marketplaces. This study examines critical factors on the consumer's adoption of the IPTV service. Based on the Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), IPTV specific attributes and personal characteristics, we derive eight key factors in the research model. compatibility, ease of use, image, diversity of contents, interactivity, monetary value, social influence, and user satisfaction. Using the partial least square (PLS) method on the data collected through a web-based survey, we test our research model with several hypotheses. From this study, we find that diversity of contents, compatibility and interactivity have a significant indirect effect on the use of IPTV service via user satisfaction, and user satisfaction and social influence also have a significant direct impact on the IPTV use. These findings not only provide practical insights on the consumer acceptance of new technology-converging services, but also help managers to plan their marketing strategies better.