Reporting by Timo Argillander

Dual screen approach brings interaction to personal devices, leaving TV sets for TV programs

The biggest single idea shared by a multitude of IBC presenters was the rather simple concept of “dual screen” interaction. Rather that pushing TV sets to be interactive, it was recognised that interactivity related to TV content takes place on personal devices: laptops, tablets or smartphones.

TV programs are and will be discussed on Facebook and other social forums. Games and other interaction will be important for marketing purposes and making people actively view the programs.

Facebook’s Trevor Johnson explained that in addition to services they provide within Facebook web service they see significant growth in “off-Facebook” activities, such as embedding Like-buttons on web sites.

Online TV is broadcasters’ everyday, but it is the short tail that reigns

In today’s world, broadcasters need to offer their viewers an on-demand service. In TV channel on-demand services the most popular content seems to be what is the most popular also on linear TV viewing. People tend to view the must-see programs that they have missed when first aired. Thus it is the short instead of the long tail that benefits of these services. This way online TV is not cannibalising existing business but rather providing larger audience reach.

Even though on-demand would rationally thinking be the most convenient way of accessing TV programming, people easily stick to their old habits. When a consumer is well served with cable or satellite subscription package and own recordings in the set-top-box, there may not be adequate need to go for an on-demand offering.

TV viewing habits seem to transfer to on-demand services: BBC’s Simon Nelson noticed, that in their popular iPlayer on-demand service users tend to search for TV programming most often through programme chart. Supposedly the role of user recommendations will become a significant way of finding TV content in the future.

One should also not underestimate the role of several kinds of gatekeepers in online TV. “For me the most important gatekeeper is my wife, who does not want any more remotes or cables in our living room”, one industry executive said.

Mixed opinions on whether today’s kids will turn back to TV once they grow old

Matt Rennie of UK online TV service Seesaw shared data showing that of 16-24-year-olds in the UK 60 % view TV online and for 16 % its is their primary way of accessing TV content.

RTL CEO Gerhard Zeiler disagreed strongly that TV viewing should principally change. He claimed that today’s youngsters will turn to view “traditional” TV programming once they grow old. Zeiler however recognises that viewing can take place with new kinds of devices but the content consumed would be very much the kind that is being broadcast today.

TV sets connect to the Internet, lack of standards slows down adoption

Terms “connected TV” and “over-the-top TV” (OTT) refer simply said to having Internet connection in the TV set and accessing online content through TV’s user interface. Most big TV manufacturers offer connected TV sets bundled with some TV content offering. Also Apple TV can be counted in this category (though it is not a TV set but connection box).

Connected TVs suffer from lack of standards. It is expensive to develop any interactive concepts as some 20-40 different specifications needs to be supported. There are some attempts to standardisation, such as UK project Canvas and French-German HbbTV.

On the whole the current situation with manufaturer-specific content offerings slows down consumer adoption of connected TVs.

According to one TV executive, however, for TV industry it is better to live in an unstandardised situation rather than see one such leading platform to emerge that is not controlled by TV companies. “In music iTunes took much of the market control, we don’t want such to happen in TV.”

In the connected TV offering Google TV stands up clearly as a game changer as it addresses content searches not only to single service provider but also to user’s own set-top-box and to all Internet content. However now that many prefer the dual screen approach, Google TV’s way of combining search and viewing on one screen was questioned. Google was not present at the IBC conference (for Google’s TV intentions check out Eric Schmidt’s keynote at IFA conference last week).

3D will enjoy success as a niche business

3D stereoscopic TV continues to be a hot topic. Especially TV vendors and pay TV companies look for business opportunities in the area. 3D transmissions are relatively easy to implement, as the stereoscopic picture can be transmitted as a standard HD stream and received by standard HD set-top-boxes. A 3D TV set processes the HD stream and filters right and left eye pictures to be displayed.

Strategy Analytics provided new research data on 3D. In the UK, 40 % of the consumers are very or somewhat interested in 3D viewing. This interest is clearly fuelled by 3D cinema experiences.

However, only 9 % of consumers will consider buying a 3D capable TV set in the next 12 months. Combining this figure with the fact that only a part of the consumers are receiving a 3D subscription, only a very small percentage will tune to 3D in the near future.

Another hindrance is the lack of 3D content. High quality 3D content requires different narration and editing than 2D. From this follow, that there will always be an extra cost for shooting both 2D and 3D. There are also solutions that enhance automatically 2D content to look like 3D, although the quality doesn’t match original 3D production.

It seems that 3D will enjoy some success as a high-end service but will not spread to all TV content in the near future.

Kidsco innovates in TV content business

Kidsco is a newly established channel company founded by two ex-Disney executives. The London-based company delivers children’s programming in 92 countries and on 18 languages. Their target group are 6-10-year-olds.

Kidsco acquires original children’s programming. But instead of paying production companies for the content, Kidsco provides content producers profit-share agreements based on several revenue sources, such as merchandise. According to co-founder and CEO Paul Robinson, in children’s programming is the same phenomenum as in music: many people just want to produce it, even if nobody would buy it. This leads to oversupply of content and makes it possible for a company like Kidsco to acquire content with no upfront payment.

Robinson told that kids around the world are pretty much the same and they like the same kinds of things. Kidsco produces the same content for a multitude of the markets just localising the audio part. The same video works for all markets.

Kidsco is a good example of a lean channel organisation. They employ just 20 people and outsource as much as possible. The company has reached an “eight-number” revenue level and aims at being profitable next year, says Robinson.