British TV broadcasting: 2012 Predictions

It’s that time of the year where it’s obligatory to make a few predictions about the year ahead.  Here’s my topline thoughts on what’s in-store for British TV broadcasters and producers in 2012:

5 things that are likely to happen

1. Massive upheaval in TV commissioning teams
For those commissioners that have their fingers firmly in their ears when it comes to multi-platform storytelling 2012 will be the year they get found out. Maybe five years ago it was cute to say “I’m no good with computers”, now it’s frankly embarrassing when you’re supposed to be in touch with how your audience are behaving. Channel 4 will probably be the most visible broadcaster to transform its commissioning team – weeding out people that are either not capable in a convergent age or are stale from too many years in the same place, and unlike in previous years where it was a case of musical chairs in the TV commissioning job market expect to see new types of producer stepping into their empty shoes.  With some big departures already announced at C4 it will be interesting to see who they hire.  Where Channel 4 lead expect others to follow – not least at UKTV now 50% owned by US network Scripps who will be looking to drive revenues through their digital lifestyle properties.  ITV on the other hand will probably continue to flail around in a state of utter confusion.

2. Reform of independent production commissioning quotas
With NewsCorp, NBC Universal & Time Warner rapidly snapping up indies (plus Endemol and All3Media likely candidates for acquisition in 2012) there will be an increasing pressure to reconsider the effectiveness of indie commissioning quotas in supporting grassroots creative TV production businesses.  I’m told that when Jeremy Hunt recommends reform to quotas in the forthcoming Communications Act he’ll be under considerable pressure from the BBC to replace the current ‘catch all’ indie quotas with a quota for start-up and small independent producers.  The likely effect on the big indies will be marginal as they already have diverse and often international businesses, but for smaller players this could be a huge boost and precipitate a new wave of startups (particularly led by key talent currently in broadcasters and the bigger indie groups).

3. The Rise and Rise of YouTube
2011 was the year where Google’s Eric Schmidt extended the hand of friendship to the TV broadcast and production community at Edinburgh TV Festival – wanting to bring together the ‘luvvies’ and the ‘boffins’ (all of course mediated by Google technologies and platforms).  Burnt by the lack of interest in Google TV in the US during 2011 Google were in overdrive wooing the British TV community as they prepare to launch Google TV in the UK.  Now in 2012 we’ll see how far Google are willing to go when the broadcasters most likely don’t play ball.  Google already have thousands of hours of professional content in production for a new suite of YouTube ‘channels’ and expect them to ramp this up further.  I’d put money on YouTube securing exclusivity with a number of key TV personalities to front content for them (is Jamie Oliver’s contract up soon?  Or what about Oprah or Doctor Phil?) plus they’ll go after sports rights, first look movies, bring back TV series – expect Google to write some big cheques for content in 2012.

4. Battle of the connected TV services
Putting Google TV to one side there will be a huge push by Microsoft to turn the XBox in to a premiere entertainment hub with a number of high profile content deals coming on stream in early 2012.  There’s the launch of youview *sometime* next year which, if done correctly, could be the logical next generation of Freeview for 8million+ homes. There’s the increasing sales of connected TV’s from the likes of Samsung, Panasonic, LG etc as people upgrade their TV’s for the summer olympics (although a continuing lack of compelling ‘app’ content will remain on these CE devices because of platform fragmentation), and finally there’s the rumoured entry of Apple in Q3 with an Apple TV set which will inevitably have a fantastic product design, intuitive UI (possibly using Siri) and great content via iTunes.  Away from the consumer electronics space there will also be some big entrants on the content distribution front – not least Netflix launching in the UK in early 2012, but don’t be surprised in Tesco does something clever too following its purchase of Blinkbox.

5. A breakthrough multiplatform format
This is the one I’m really hoping for!  There’s been success with shows like “Million Pound Drop” and tomorrow Channel 4′s next big interactive gameshow “The Bank Job” is due to launch, but I hope 2012 will deliver something truly transmedia that breaks all the rules.  I’m not saying “Million Pound Drop” isn’t a great show – it is – but I’m not sure how much we’ve really moved on in terms of play-along since BBC’s “The National IQ Test” which is now officially 10 years old!  Yes achieving 12% playalong levels is very good but I would love to see something that is so compelling to the audience they just have to participate!  I’m not saying all TV should be like that – lean back television is what the audience want most of the time – but I’m hoping 2012 will see at least a couple of new immersive formats that push boundaries, particularly in genres other than traditional studio gameshows… that’s certainly my personal focus for 2012.

I’ve just read in Broadcast an extract of Peter Bennett-Jones’ BAFTA speech – with the headline “Has data become the enemy of originality?”.  The article is about how broadcasters are taking less risk because of the increasing use of data in decision making – namely that commercial pressures drive commissioners to chase ratings, and this ultimately leads to a raft of derivative programmes.  The result, according to PBJ, is that “original and polemical programming is in the casualty ward”.

This view troubles me… data is a great thing. Look at the world of entertainment outside television… is crunching numbers and understanding audience behaviour making things like social games worse?  Apart from the fact if it weren’t for understanding this data social games wouldn’t exist, let alone be a $2billion market, but understanding the numbers (and by extension the audience) means they can constantly innovate, tweak their product, and improve the experience.

The real problem with how data inhibits innovation in TV is actually a cultural problem in TV itself… *some* (or maybe I should say *most*) people who don’t understand how to use data to aid creativity.  I actually don’t have a problem with commissioning on the basis of how a similar format did on another channel when moving that format on in a decent way (for example it’s great how Channel 4 borrowed the successful ’fixed camera rig’ from shows like Big Brother and applied it to documentary), that doesn’t mean that I approve of the BBC making ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ as soon as they saw ‘Downtown Abbey’ was a hit.  One thing I certainly disapprove of though, much to the disappointment of the old school of TV producers and commissioners, is commissioning based on whims – on things you read about in a newspaper or something your daughter said was a good idea.  Occasionally you hit gold, but rarely.  I think it’s a unique trait of TV that decisions are so often made with little or no business case, at least data goes some way to helping broadcasters scrutinise ideas.

Where data could really empower commissioners goes beyond just understanding the competition – it even goes beyond understanding the audience - it should be about responding to them, and quickly.  The big entertainment companies operating online work on an ‘agile’ basis -they release quickly and refine constantly.  Wouldn’t it be great if TV were more like that?  Ok – maybe not always practical for a drama, but what about live TV?  I personally loved ’10 O’Clock Live’ on Channel 4 – but it didn’t rate that well – and the format didn’t change over the entire run. Sure things can take a while to get an audience and I’d never advocate ripping up the format completely each week – but where was the iteration, the testing, the evolution of the show?  It’s not just ’10 O’Clock Live’: ‘Famous and Fearless’, ‘Red Or Black’, the list goes on.

Peter Bennett-Jones may yearn after the good old days when it was all about the idea – that ‘hunch’ on an A4 piece of paper with no supporting evidence.  I’m not saying broadcasters shouldn’t take risks, they must to stay ahead, but data can mean the difference between an informed risk and just being downright reckless.  If TV is going to survive in the long term we all have to work and think differently.  We need to use the powerful and exciting richness of data to improve the products we offer – and ultimately improve the prospects for our businesses.

Peter Bennett Jones speaking at BATFA

Last weekend I was at Edinburgh TV festival.  In previous years it’s been a bit of naval gazing affair – opulent parties where commissioners congratulate each other, screenings of forthcoming ‘hits’, the odd celebrity wheeled out by his or her paymasters.  This year wasn’t a massive departure from that except for the addition of those pesky internet people encroaching on the party – infact I’m told by the organisers that they’ve seen the biggest growth in attendees from outside the broadcaster/indie sector.  This year there were sessions on IPTV, mobile apps, data crunching, and not least the addition of YouTube as a headline sponsor and Google chairman Eric Schmidt giving the McTaggart lecture.  For me the interesting session wasn’t Dr Schmidt but the session on how convergence is impacting the business of television for broadcaster/publishers.

One big theme was the debate about how broadcasters have taken their eye off the ball and seen lots of valuable interaction around their content take place on third party platforms like Facebook and YouTube.  David Abrahams talked a lot about how Channel 4 is thinking hard about the extent to which they work with successful social services like Facebook to ‘join the dots’ between their programmes and other forms of interaction, and how their solution will (in part) be their own proprietary registration system.  At the moment Channel 4 have all kinds of inert databases around different shows and genres, so they’re working hard to join these up and create a backend system to help them mine more valuable data from their audience, and thus prove their worth to advertisers with the kind of analytics social networks can offer.

Of course the big question for me is what do the audience get in return? David Abrahams talks about personalisation and some exclusive content, but is that really enough?

For me the most exciting places on the web are the communities where you can express your identity, connect and share – and yet every broadcaster is obsessed with moderation and the integrity of the channel brand- too scared to give their audience free-reign to comment, or self-moderate.  The broadcasters have imposed such strict standards on their services that apart from great on-demand content everything around it is generally sparse and dull.  Fru Hazlitt from ITV talked about the future of TV being around not only live TV but keeping engagement running between live shows – but how many of us are actually reading about X Factor on ITV.com when rivals like MailOnline have juicier content, infused with personality, allowing people to add their comments, and even allowing people to vote on the comments on those message boards?  The Ofcom regulatory mindset has crept into the broadcasters’ online offerings, and so they’re not realising their full potential.  Sure they do ok, but imagine the potential.

David Abrahams talks about Channel 4 as this big trusted brand that people will see as a safe place to share their information, but I still think people are more engaged with shows than channels – and so real fans will ultimately engage with that show in the place that gives them the most freedom to express themselves.  There’s always a balance of carrot and stick – but ‘personalisation’ and ‘extra content’ feels like a given in a world where consumers have such high expectations.  Even though Channel 4 give their content away for free on 4oD (ad supported) this is still something the audience has come to expect after a decade of publishers giving away their content for free online.  How ITV think they’ll make any meaningful revenues from charging for content online is beyond me.

So yes – broadcasters are right that they need to become the place where show interactions happen.  Yes – this is how they’ll defend their revenues from online rivals who can offer deep audience insight.  But the question remains – what’s the carrot for the audience? For me going down an AOL.com/Yahoo route of expensive editorial teams producing copy and exclusive videos is not the answer – it’s removing the filters and allowing people who are passionate about programmes to truly express themselves, to connect with fans, and to use this insight to deliver them richer and more personalised experiences.  It requires a big culture change in the channels’ brand and editorial teams, but ultimately this is the only way I can see broadcasters really becoming multiplatform destinations in their own right.

Apologies that it’s been so long since my last blog – things have been busy with a rather exciting development project we’ve secured with a broadcaster.  I’m sworn to silence on that for now, but I can talk about this…

Yesterday the good and the great of the digital world came together at Horseferry Road to hear Channel 4’s vision for creating a new type of relationship with the viewer, and a new relationship with new suppliers.

The changing viewer relationship is about the shift to personalisation – from a homogenised mass audience all seeing the same ads or being offered the same catch-up content when they logon to 4oD for example, to a bespoke and immersive experience with the Channel 4 network – what they call ‘4D’: feeling part of television.

This data-driven vision will be realised by the creation of a universal registration system across Channel 4’s assets, plus the creation of new truly-2-way multiplatform television formats that both capture data and enhance the viewer experience (or should I say ‘fan’/’customer’ experience).

Truly interactive, immersive and personalised formats are a key plank in that virtuous circle that satisfies the fans, delivers value to advertisers, and ultimately delivers investment back into the creative sector.

So who is the creative sector that Channel 4 is looking to engage?  It’s been pretty widely recognised that the network has had a dependence on the super-indie suppliers, but now there are signs that’s changing.  We’ve heard it before for sure, but they’ve actually put money down to spend on this cause – in the convergence fund and for the smallest and newest suppliers: the Alpha Fund.  On forging new supplier relationships and boosting the supply of ideas head of online Richard Davidson-Houston said:

“We don’t believe in a hierarchy of TV and other platforms – a multiplatform TV format can come from a digital company… we are looking for new ways to tell stories… and we want ideas and stories from new sources”.

This was backed up by commissioning editor for convergent formats Anna Cronin and multiplatform commissioning lead Louise Brown who reiterated good ideas can come from anywhere, and they see a big part of their remit as partnering the people who think up great ideas with the people that are great at building stuff.  Collaboration is the future of new formats – it’s a good challenge to the big proprietary super-indie business model of recent years.

So, what ideas do they want?

Well often they know it when they see it but the headlines for me were that for convergent formats there’s an urgent call for ideas now… the thing that differentiates a convergent format from a multiplatform commission is that these are future formats that can’t be delivered right now – because the technology isn’t there yet for example.  It’s about the next evolution of the TV format, pure experimentation, and something that if it went further down the line wouldn’t be realised on screen until at least 2013.

Multiplatform commissioning needs on the other hand are more immediate – with development funds available this year leading to commissions throughout 2012.  Key bullet points are: ambitious, simple and clear, audience behaviour driven, entertaining, risky, bringing in great talent from UX people to games developers.  Key genre needs are new access and formats for features, funny games/quizzes for entertainment, ideas to get the public excited and engaged with Channel 4′s paralympics coverage in 2012, and in news something defining to set the pace.

Get pitching!

Imano has just published a great infographic on how Brits are using their iPads.  Here’s a quick summary:

As a leisure device:
95% of owners use it in their living room and 89% in bed. Internet browsing and email is the killer application (98% and 94% respectively), but 88% are also using it to consume video, music and radio, and 78% use it for social networking. iPads are primarily for leisure – less than half of respondents use it for work.

A great transaction platform:
78% of owners use their iPad for online shopping. What’s very impressive is that half of owners (48%) say their iPad is the internet connected device they spend the most money on – more than mobile (11%), laptop (16%), fixed computer (19%) and cable/internet TV (4%).  If broadcasters/content owners want a transactional relationship with their viewers in the future then chances are this will not be via red button but via a second screen, particularly a tablet.  However investment in second screen commerce will be limited until iPad/tablet penetration picks up (which will probably come as prices drop). In terms of apps most iPad owners have paid-for 20-49 apps.

A shared device
31% of iPad users say they’re the only user.  50% of users share it with a spouse/partner, and 29% let their children use their iPad. While we talk about mobile as personal device, we need to design apps for iPad that can switch between a state of being personal and communal.

A strong connection with gaming consoles
I thought it was particularly striking that 51% of iPad users also own a Wii, 34% own a PS3 and 30% an XBOX – a far higher proportion of console owners that the broader population. We’ve already seen iPad used as a remote control with Comcast Xfinity amongst others, how long will it be until the iPad becomes the games console controller? Also, 79% of British owners use the iPad itself as a gaming device.

For watching video
The most popular source of video on iPad is YouTube (87%), closely followed by catch-up TV (74%).  The catch up TV stat is pretty impressive when you consider that it’s really only iPlayer that offer a full inventory of catch up material, with Channel 4’s 4oD service offering limited content and Sky Player costing £8 per month (although that’s changing shortly when Sky launch Sky Go)… this is going to be a major growth area.

iPad owners are real advocates
94% of British iPad users love their iPad – 70% say it’s ‘excellent’, and 24% say “it’s the best thing in my life”… oh dear!

Screen shot from Imano: click here for the full infographic

In the light of declining readership and advertising revenues there’s probably not many instances where you’d hail newspapers as a good example to broadcasters – but there is one thing they do particularly well… and that’s the relationship with their audience.

As things stand TV broadcasters rely on BARB to tell them who’s watching – they have an idea of their demographic profile for sure – supplemented with the odd bit of commissioned audience research and then often a lot of tittle-tattle opinion about why something did or didn’t work (more often than not based on the opinions of a circle of elite media buddies).

But newspapers, particularly the broadsheets, are much more sophisticated.  Take The Telegraph – over half of their readers are loyal subscribers – they know how long they’ve been subscribing for, who they are, where they live, what they enjoy, and they reward their loyalty (through their ‘Privilege’ discount card) and learn from them: everyone in the Telegraph business regularly meets their readers – from running special days where subscribers can phone in to speak to the management from the chief exec down, to giving their readers tours of the newsroom and regularly sending out surveys on even the smallest planned editorial tweaks.  Then look at their journalists; they’re always speaking to readers, on twitter, face to face, on the phone, on message-boards, their job more often than not is directly tied to their popularity with the audience.  I saw this ‘closeness’ first hand last year when I ran a number of concept development sessions around the vision for their latest iPad edition, where as well as bringing commercial and editorial teams together, we brought the audience in – not just in the form of spreadsheets or behaviour statistics, but by actually speaking to them – hundreds of them face to face, thousands via email.  It’s not just The Telegraph who’ve built a strong direct relationship with their readers – for years The Times built audience loyalty through it’s Times+ scheme rewarding subscribers with all kinds of ancillary benefits, and The Guardian has been investing heavily in CRM.  Ok, when it comes to raw data newspapers are nowhere as sophisticated as Apple with iTunes or Google with gmail, and there’s a lot more newspapers could do to monitise the relationship with the customer, but compared to free-to-air TV they’re miles ahead…

… so David Abraham’s recent RTS speech was really interesting, firing the starting gun for broadcasters (well, commercial terrestrials at least) to start building that direct and transactional relationship with customers.  Powered by the convergence of TV and the web, he wants to ‘make viewers a bigger part of the conversation than ever before’ (although maybe ‘viewers’ is not quite the right word for this future audience).  He suggests that by 2020 two-thirds of TV audiovisual content viewing time across devices will be tracked intelligently – powering more personal experiences, giving deeper understanding of how to improve the Channel 4 content offering, and also to allowing them to create a new kind of television ad model powered by the kind of metrics delivered by google, facebook, and others.  This kind of CRM is key to all of us working in television, because the happier advertisers are and the more they pay the more money gets reinvested in original content.  To sell those high-value ads Abrahams says Channel 4 needs that customer relationship to be direct, just as it is with the newspapers, and not mediated by a third-party – so that’s Facebook told then!

What’s reassuring about the speech is that Channel 4 have recognised a key thing when it comes to soliciting this data: rather than punishing people for not sharing their details by taking stuff away from them, they’ve recognised people will volunteer their information if you give them something rewarding – that could be something new, or a better and more personalised experience.  Judging by the fact that they’ve already achieved over a quarter of a million downloads of the 4oD iPad app in 3 weeks and a ‘significant proportion’ of downloaders volunteered their personal information, this backs up their approach (of course, with information comes great responsibility – see my post on the PS3 data leak).

So good on Channel 4 for setting out a new vision, and most of all making that vision about a direct and unmediated conversation with the audience – done the right way it will be the audience that benefit as much as our industry.

David Abraham, Channel 4 chief exec

I have a confession to make: I don’t have a different password for every single online account in my name. Sure there’s a few particularly sensitive or transactional accounts which might be an exception but for most there’s a good chance it will be one of a couple of variants.

As a digital evangelist I should probably know better, but as more and more of what we do online is powered by a personal relationship with hundreds and thousands of different companies can we really be expected to remember the same number of unique and uncrackable password combinations?

Well for the 77 million plus Playstation Network users out there (of which I’m one) we’re faced with this this very question.  It’s a real wake up call that if a company the size of Sony isn’t encrypting our data properly then can we place faith in SMEs… is it safe to share my details with the likes of ITV, or the Guardian, or foursquare?

So what does all of this mean for the convergence of TV and the web? All the major broadcasters recognize the need to move past a reliance on BARB data and to develop a direct and data rich relationship with consumers, but the catastrophic failure at Sony is a further dent to consumer confidence in sharing their information.

Without registration it will be harder to offer consumer products that deliver a personalized service, from surfacing content that’s relevant based on explicit user preferences, to using account histories and user behaviours to power recommendation and improve user experience (eg. one-click purchase).  And let’s not forget this data is also important customer insight and of value to advertisers who may support our services.  As consumers lose trust the consequence may be to strengthen the attractiveness of universal login services through third parties like facebook further eroding our direct relationship with consumers and introducing a middleman (and middlemen eventually need paying).

There’s also a very practical issue for the kind of convergence we want to deliver.  Because of the PS3 hack I not only have to change my twitter login on twitter.com, but on all the accounts that sync with it: my mobile, tweetdeck, peep, tweetme, facebook, and the list goes on.  What does this mean if we want people to be able to buy through Amazon on their remote? And what about the next generation of EPGs that will be powered by the social curve and our online behavior elsewhere on the web?  We’re talking about not only a lot of places for data to leak but many more places to update when things go wrong.  Again this plays into the hands of the big players like Facebook, who would surely love every movement we make on the web passing through their walled garden, but then the debate moves from one of data protection to privacy…

Right now many consumers are sharing their information in a pretty unguarded way, in good faith, only to discover that the privacy they thought they had isn’t so, from facebook thinking it’s ok to pass their mobile numbers to third parties, or masses of sensitive information being passed to app producers via the unregulated Android marketplace (including many apps with the sole purpose of harvesting data). To remind consumers that all of this activity is permitted by the ‘terms and conditions’ on these services is no defense, these companies really are cutting off their nose to spite their face.  Add these privacy violations to the PS3 data leak as the latest in a long list of recent security compromises (play.com, Internet Explorer…), and a press who love to stoke up fear amongst the public, and we have a serious problem…where consumers will simply refuse to share, or worse the government will intervene in a big way.  Both scenarios are terrible news for competition and innovation, but most depressingly it’s terrible news for the free web and SMEs.  From Sony and facebook to startups present and future: we need to get our house in order, take consumers concerns seriously, or risk losing the most valuable thing we have: a relationship with the customer.

Another great session at South by Southwest this year was by Dan Shust at Resource Interactive, looking at some of the big trends for 2011.  Here’s a quick summary:

Social: The integration of Facebook across platforms via Facebook Connect continues at a relentless pace.  Another major innovation has been the ‘like’ button which only appeared 11 months ago but has already been pressed over a billion times.

Location: SXSW 2010 was all about the battle between Foursquare and Gowalla, but since then Facebook, Google and even Twitter have switched on location features.  There’s an issue though and that is check-in fatigue.  In 2011 expect to see the rise of passive check-in services – things like ShopKick which uses high-frequency sound emitters (mosquito style) in stores like BestBuy and SportsAuthority to check you in.

Audio: which brings us neatly onto the increasing role of audio prompting action in your mobile device.  Just as ShopKick uses sound to determine location, a new generation of Shazaam style services are emerging – like IntoNow and Yahoo Broadcaster Interactivity in the TV space.  If 2010 was the year of the QR code to launch services, 2011 is the year of the audio wave.

Entertainment Everywhere: 2010 was the year of talking about entertainment services across platforms – take Sky Player on XBox, or the ubiquity of iPlayer.  2011 is all about Netflix who are everywhere except Android now.

TV: We’ve seen how the conversation around TV has in many ways started to eclipse TV itself – or at the very least become a major part of the viewing experience.  Up to now much of this experience is via a second screen.  Now the rise of connected TV will increasingly see second screen TV experiences complimented by on-TV interactive experiences that blur the lines between television, web and gaming.

Commerce: This year will see the continuing atomisation of commerce into distributed shopping platforms – Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Life as a Game: Gamification was the big buzzword from SXSW 2011.  Last year saw the rise of services like Foursquare and the continued growth of Nike+, but 2011 will see the application of game principles to even more aspects of everyday life.  These game experiences will be richer than ever before – take EpicMix as a great example of where real world gaming is headed – mixing social, points, status and competition in a really neat way.

Augmented Reality – this time last year XBox Kinect was being whispered about under the code name ‘Project Natal’, and now it’s the hottest console gaming accessory in the market.  As processors improve there will be more and more products in this space – take a look at the video for language translation app Word Lens at the bottom of the post.

iPad – and finally the iPad has been out less than a year but we’re already on version 2 with Android and Blackberry already competing for market share.  So maybe it’s not going to be the saviour of the newspaper industry as some overly-optomistic advocates predicted but we’re still in the early adopter phase of growth and expect more and more innovation and competition in this space.

A couple of months ago at the AOP event ‘The Rise of Connected Television’ (Jan 2011) future technology visionary Anthony Rose said “publishers now need to embrace connected TV”.  But with so many platforms, no proven business model, and considerable technical hurdles which come with not-insignificant development costs, who is going to move first in the UK?

While quite a few US news organisations have jumped on the connected television bandwagon, UK publishers are still pondering which platform is worthy of investment, if any, and whether the answer is in flash apps, TV optomised websites or lean back video services.

Prioritising resource allocation towards competing devices- from Android or Blackberry tablets (for example) versus connected television is is not an easy sell internally.

While there are reasons to sit and wait, I also think the reasons to invest NOW are equally compelling.  So for publishing companies out there who create and own content here are 6 key points to help you sell this investment internally.  Or if you’d rather have someone else sell it to your senior team give us a call and we’d be happy to present.  So here we go…

Reason 1. TV App Placement
The new connected television platforms are short on content right now. Samsung, the leading CE solution, has only 380 applications in the app store. Virgin TiVo has only a handful but by the end of the year it plans to have ‘hundreds’ of television apps competing for space.

Reason 2. Promotional Activity
The competing platforms are/will be marketing their connected solutions aggressively, and popular third party apps can benefit from this activity. YouView have a promotional budget of £50million. Samsung are spending $70million globally promoting their connected television app store.

Reason 3. Growth projections
There are already 2 million connected television sets in the UK. This is due to rise to 5.6 million by the end of this year, 11.6million next year, and 100% penetration by 2014.  Globally 40 million connected TVs have already been sold.  60% of new televisions being sold next year are expected to have internet connectivity. Major retailers Best Buy and Walmart say they will only sell connected TVs by the end of 2012.  Independent research predicts YouView will have a market penetration of 3-4million by 2014 (high case scenario 8.3million). Virgin’s new TiVo box will be rolled out to 3.7million customers over the next few years.  TV app downloads are also accelerating: it took 268 days for Samsung to shift the first million television apps, but 53 days to shift the next million.

Reason 4. Rival Activity
There are only a few flash based news apps on connected televisions so far, including the AP News Ticker, weather and stock price tickers. More investment has been made into HTML5 television optomized websites (launched in GoogleTV’s app environment ‘Spotlight’), for example New York Times, USA Today, Al Jazeera TV, CNN, C:net, Huffington Post.  In terms of the UK VirginMedia TiVo has its own Celebrity news app.  No major ‘household name’ news publisher is established in this space, yet.

Reason 5. Television: An attractive platform
At the moment connected television users are more tech saavy and higher earners (owing to the price of connected TV sets). As set top box solutions and platforms like YouView launch (a hybrid connected TV/VOD and Freeview platform) the audience will broaden. Either way the average Brit is spending 4 hours a day using their television set. The adoption of video on demand is increasing: 8% to 22% active reach in the last 2 years.  Connected TV offers a lean back television experience to the consumer but the level of insight and accountability that advertisers expect from online.

Reason 6. Capturing a new audience
Lastly as highlighted in last weeks NMA session on media consumption by kids (see my recent blog post) – there’s a whole audience to whom formats like print are completely irrelevant (and dare I say it, even PC based web-browsing is not that important to certain sections of the audience).  Publishers shouldn’t only be thinking about retaining their existing customers in a shrinking market, but about how they can attract new customers through these more relevant platforms.  This is not just about getting a TV optomized website, it’s about producing the kinds of content that works on connected TV (and other devices)… think moving pictures, photography, graphics, it’s a whole new set of rules that requires a completely different mindset… and we’re always on call to help!

Limited by space I haven’t chucked everything in but there are many more compelling statistics and projections to back up these 6 points but this should hopefully get that conversation started in your digital teams.

A final note: this week I’m off to South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas to represent The Connected Set – so things may be temporarily quiet on the blog front but no doubt frantic on the twitter front @theconnectedset.  If you’re going to be out there and fancy a beer there drop me a line.  Jason (MD, The Connected Set).

Radio 4’s Media Show led with the news that YouView’s launch has been delayed again, this time until ‘sometime in 2012’.  You can catch up with the full interview via iPlayer here, but here’s a quick summary:

Before Richard took to the mic YouView’s problems were summed up by media consultant Matthew Horton:

• YouView has been too focused on managing up and getting the platform through BBC Trust approval.  Managing down and getting the thing built has not moved quickly.
• Shareholder disagreements have also been a major problem – particularly issues around cost recovery for running the platform (already £6million per shareholder) and the user interface of EPG versus a more web like navigation experience.
• The latest delay will only see other connected platforms gain market share (in fact in today’s New Media Age Nigel Walley at Decipher said “YouView has missed the window to be the dominant force in the market”)
• With the delay it will be launching in to a more developed market, and it’s crucial it gets it right first time.
• They still don’t have a working box.

Then Richard Halton’s turn to respond:

• Trust approval for YouView was a year later than planned which had a knock on effect on to the delivery schedule.  They now have a plan to launch early to mid 2012 and it includes plenty of contingency.
• They’re very happy with the user interface which is working but the backend coding is proving more complex.  As YouView is a ‘complete solution’ including payment this is adding to the complexity.
• They’re reducing the scope of some elements of the project.  Only last week all the shareholders agreed on a new reduced specification and timeline, which is why they held off announcing the delay.
• Asked on first mover advantage Richard said being first is not always best, citing GoogleTV’s failure, and saying how iPlayer got it right even though it launched after 4oD.
• He also argued the audience (predominantly Freeview customers) are not early adopters.  (certainly most people outside the industry haven’t heard of connected TV, let alone YouView).
• Asked about the fact catch up services are already available across multiple devices including PS3, Wii, Virgin, etc, and if it makes YouView irrelevant he said it will be the first platform to bring all the major VOD services and EPG together as a seamless package and that he thinks it is just as strong a consumer proposition despite the delays.
• Will it launch by the time of the 2012 Olympics?  “Absolutely”.

I know a lot of people are already writing off YouView but it’s my belief that it still has the potential to be the leading platform, or at worst second to Sky in terms of market penetration.  The main reason for my optomism is that the broadcasters are the shareholders.  Content is king in this case, and while they may deploy their catch up services on other platforms the opportunities to create new converged content services on their own proprietary platform *should* make YouView more compelling than rivals.  Let’s not forget it is still live and time shifted viewing that accounts for over 95% of TV content viewing.  With so much investment the broadcasters have to make it work – expect them to throw a lot more cash at it for launch, as well as huge chunk of airtime .