ASI European TV Symposium: Anywhere, Anytime, Any Device

Ashley Highfield’s pronouncement that the TV industry “has 2-3 years to adapt or it will face its i-tunes moment” was used to introduce the TV Technology session at last week’s ASI European TV Symposium in Istanbul.

TV everywhere, TV widgets and connected TV were the buzz words for the ensuing debate.

During the chairman session, Graham Lovelace, of Lovelace Consulting, told delegates that ‘TV everywhere’ is a strategy that has been rolled out by Comcast in the USA, and is also likely to be pursued by Sky.

It enables existing subscribers get access to their content everywhere at no extra charge, however, the iPhone deal yesterday suggests that there may be additional fees for all.

TV widgets make it possible to view web content via television sets, essentially bypassing the broadcasters, which can already be seen with services such as Netflix and CinemaNow for films, CBS for general entertainment and online platforms such as eBay and Twitter (click here for a demo).

These spawn the phrase Connected TV – conventional TV with other applications built in.

Naturally the latter also puts the manufacturers in a leading role where they can start to become gatekeepers or owners of a content platform, although David Whittaker, business development director at NDS Group, said this was already leading to a lot of confusion among manufacturers’ claims.

Whittaker commented that technology is currently ahead of content management on VOD and catch-up TV.  He also forecast that content would remain most viewed on the primary in-home TV set.  Currently these services are on the wrong screen/wrong room to make progress, he said.

Whittaker also saw further take up of converged services or “hybrid delivery” (broadcast, broadband, mobile phone); greater home storage of content (on the set top box, not externally); and co-operations between data companies and content suppliers over measurement data, especially set top box data, so that catch-up TV becomes part of the measurement currency.

He told delegates to look out for “side-loading” – whereby the box transfers a chosen programme to your mobile (but the viewed data still goes back to the set top box), with addressable and personalised advertising. Once again the technology is there already, but there is no marketing action as yet.