Opinion


Broadcaster focus Demanding times


As it’s the beginning of a New Year it must be time to make a spate of predictions about 2011. My predictions are that somebody will claim that this summer will be the hottest since records began and that 2011 will be the year of on demand TV. OK - so I’ve never really been one for risk taking. Leaving aside the first prediction, its clear that every media platform has figured out that the internet connected media space is the future. Everyone – from Sky to Virgin to PS3 to Google TV to Sony Internet TV to YouView – is determined to stake its claim. The big breakthrough is going to be relocation of the seven day catch up


services from the PC to the TV, where you might think they should have been in the first place. The designers have been putting a lot of effort into creating intuitive interfaces to enable viewers to scroll back in their EPGs and access catch up services as easily as they can change channels and select linear TV programming. The main variants are going to be the platforms such as Sky and Virgin


and the “over the top” providers such as Google TV, which is claiming it will bring the world of television and search together with a more browser oriented product and is likely to major more on downloadable apps. You might think that broadcasters would be overjoyed by the potential of Google TV and will embrace the potential surge in viewing it might precipitate, but you’d be wrong. The networks are eyeing the US launch next year with suspicion and


won’t be offering their content to the party. This won’t do much to reduce consumer confusion about what internet enabled on demand TV will actually offer them. The thinking is that this will favour the established brands such as Sky, which consumers gravitate towards when offered a blizzard of confusing choices. There’s also a big opportunity for the free on demand TV player YouView.


It’s likely to be the only player in the short term that will offer seven day catch- up content from all the free-to-air broadcasters – plus it will be free. But how much will the availability of on demand affect how people watch TV? All the evidence points towards the answer being not as much as you might think. The vast majority of TV viewing is and is set to remain linear, tied closely to broadcast schedules. Less than 10% of viewing is on demand, a figure which is not expected to grow to more than 20% by 2015. One reason is that viewers like linear schedules of content because it helps them make sense of its bewildering availability. Last year linear TV viewing was higher as a whole than at any point since


1992 according to Barb, a stat which is even more startling when you think of the competition TV now faces from other media. One reason is that television in 2010 has simply been more appealing


- from Downton Abbey to the X Factor. Perhaps another is that the recent recession has served to remind people what good value entertainment television continues to be.


in my view Winter 2011 theproducer 7 2011 is


predicted to be the year in which on demand TV comes of age. David Wood assesses its prospects


DAVID WOOD Industry journalist David Wood is aTV and technology journalist and former editor of Broadcast who regularly writes for Televisual, The Sunday Post, Broadcast, and World Screen.


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