EPGs To Get Personal
Choice and peer recommendations will be at the heart of the next generation of electronic programme guides (EPGs), with personalisation becoming more prominent.
Speaking at yesterday’s MediaTel Group seminar on the ‘Future of Television’, panelist Paul Cleghorn, of Tape It Off The Internet (TIOTI), said that the EPG is “on its last legs” and that something new is needed as the TV industry and content delivery methods advance.
He pointed out that the current EPG was not designed to handle the huge amount of channels it currently has to cope with and that unless an alternative is found, the current system will need “a good kick to survive in the 21st century”.
The discussion followed Sky’s announcement that it will no longer be launching new channel slots on its satellite platform, citing finite set top box memory capacity (see Sky To Turn Down New Channel Applications).
The broad feeling amongst yesterday’s panel was that peer recommendations – which many people are used to dealing with via social networking sites such as Facebook – will have a major part to play in the future development of EPGs.
Peter Cowley, managing director of digital media at Endemol UK, offered some anecdotal evidence for the power of peer recommendations, revealing that he only downloads applications on Facebook which friends have, saying “I don’t want Facebook to tell me what I want…I think there’s a lot to learn from the personalised media we see on the internet.”
He added: “I think the Joost interface has gone some way towards it, although still has to use tiles and video graphics and things and this is probably an area we’ll develop over the next five years.”
From the floor, Gary Roddy, research director at GfK NOP Media, talked about an American company which is offering up EPGs to consumers that provide recommendations depending on what the viewer has been watching.
He also spoke about EPGs on Freeview boxes which are coming out on the market which let the viewer create their own EPG on the device, adding that one or two of the boxes allow EPGs to be created for each individual viewer in the house.
Roddy said that this new breed of Freeview EPG allows one to add channels “based on what you want, and at the same time they will add a few extra channels based on what you’ve been watching”.
Meanwhile, Cleghorn was adamant that recommendations are the way forward for EPGs because, as more and more people get PVRs and similar devices, it becomes more likely that viewers will miss promos for new shows and will “just end up recording the Simpsons everyday”.
MediaTel Group: 0207 439 7575 www.mediatelgroup.co.uk