The Internet comes to TV: Is navigation the key?

Do consumers really know what they’re looking for when it comes to video-on-demand services or do they prefer scouring the Radio Times for some good old-fashioned television scheduling?

“Navigation is a big challenge” was quoted numerous times at MediaTel Group’s ‘The Internet comes to TV – How will viewers find my content?’ seminar in London yesterday, held in association with Rovi.

For William Cooper, owner of informitv and a “true believer in convergence”, TV has become too difficult for people to use, and while VoD is a powerful tool it is not user-friendly enough.

Cooper claims that VoD figures are still fairly low in the scheme of things, in part because services are “very confusing” and people still like having a television schedule set out for them.  Apparently Virgin’s VoD service is only used by half of its subscribers.

YouTube’s head of AdSales Bruce Daisley, who knows a bit about successful navigation, suggested that digital television services focus on personal, relevant navigation to engage viewers – something which has obviously worked for the Google-owned video-sharing site.  Interestingly, he told delegates that the most use on YouTube is via links to other content -“They don’t know what they want to watch until it’s in front of them”.

Daisley said in general, consumers are confused when it comes to on-demand services, probably because there is so much content out there on so many different platforms – “too much [content] and too many channels”, according to Simon Daglish from Fox Interactive.

Although, as Daisley pointed out – “don’t bet against consumers who really want to find it, especially young people”.

Sean Besser, panellist and vice president of business development at Rovi, thinks this supports the argument for standardisation.  He suggests “one app, deployed across every device” is the answer.  “It has to be easy, if it’s difficult it won’t work”, Besser said.

Rovi themselves specialise in EPGs (its EPG technology is active in 50 million homes worldwide) so for Besser, navigation is critical and is “the biggest issue in reaching the mass market” for all digital television services.

Panellists’ agreed with Besser’s comment – you have to think about “who is holding the control and what is important to them” to maximise viewer experience.

Neil Drennan, Project Canvas’ programme manager at ITV, knows that Canvas’ EPG has to be simple and “appeal to everyone” if the service’s content is going to reach its desired mass audience.  Drennan thinks from now on, search and recommendation features should be standard on any EPG.

However, Daisley suggests that manufacturers learn from Amazon, utilising functionality like personalisation such as ‘what friends are watching’.  “People want to share viewing behaviour and TV broadcasters need to capture that,” he said.

An In-Stat analyst, as quoted in the presentation prior to yesterday’s session, summed it up –  “A truly valuable content and service discovery guide will be personalised so that it can automatically limit choices to those that are likely to fit a particular end-user’s habits.  It will also have to be intelligent, to be able to search out new things that fit users’ viewing patterns, and it will have to constantly evolve to keep up with new content, products, services, features, functions, and applications.”