April 2012
www.tvbeurope.com
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Making the right
Jane Weedon: “The amount of reach Facebook has in 15-24 year olds is a very important demographic for the BBC”
TVBEurope 21
News & Analysis Smart TV Futures
connection
“Our goals are to look at how we can get our
MANY CONNECTED TVs aren’t actually connected. Estimates vary, but perhaps as few as a third such TVs are being used to deliver any sort of online services in some European countries, although this rises to about two thirds in Germany. Even there, total numbers are still small — it is estimated that only about 7.5% of German households will use a Connected TV online this year.
The BBC has found that its
iPlayer app gets four times as much traffic on the iPad than it does on Connected TVs, even though there are estimated to be only half the number of iPads as smart TV sets in the UK. This is probably because the iPad is simpler and more convenient to use. If you sit in front of a television, it is a lot easier to just watch something live or
recorded than
product on as many platforms as possible” Jane Weedon, BBC
access any connected apps. Nevertheless, there
are lots of ways of connecting the TV set, whether through a dedicated set-top-box like the Apple TV, or via satellite, cable or digital terrestrial boxes, or even games consoles, so there is a growing potential market, and someone is going to reach them. For the BBC, it has a commitment to universality that means it should be as widely available to viewers as possible. “Our goals are to look at how we can get our product on as many platforms as possible,” Jane Weedon, director of Business Development, Future Media, BBC, said at the recent Broadcast Video Expo. The BBC hopes to do deals with all the major games console
manufac - tu rers, and recently announced a deal with Sky to get iPlayer
on its Anytime+ platform (the last major platform it was not supplying).
UKTV is also looking at a
number of opportunities for expanding its wholesale and retail offerings using Connected TV. It recently did a deal with
Sky’s Anytime+ for its archives, but going direct to the public presents a greater hurdle. “It’s very challenging for us as a mid-level broadcaster,” said Ben Hine, its director of Technology and Innovation, as it hasn’t had a direct business relationship with viewers and creating a platform to compete with iPlayer or 4oD will be expensive.
“We choose our
Most TV sets being sold now are smart, with the ability to connect to the internet and run apps: but are Connected TVs something broadcasters should be concerned about — and can you make money from them? David Foxinvestigates
Ben Hine: “The market is very fragmented”
“We choose our platforms very
platforms very carefully. We have 10 brands, so we have to look very carefully at where they go,” he said. On Sky Anytime+ it is only offering its free-to-air channels, not its lifestyle brands. The broadcaster (which is
carefully. We have 10 brands, so we have to look very closely at where they go” Ben Hine, UKTV
co-owned by Scripps Media and BBC Worldwide) has spoken to the BBC about sharing technology, but as the BBC’s VoD output is part of the same systems that deliver its linear streams, this wasn’t practical.
On the money
Getting money out of online and connected services is one of the biggest hurdles facing broadcasters. Online payments specialist PayPal believes it is the answer. It recently launched on the Xbox Live platform, with Microsoft Points (the Xbox
micropayments system), and has been setting up alliances with content distributors, such as Netflix (which has just started allowing users to pay via PayPal in the UK). “What’s changing most is the definition of what a broadcaster is. We tend to talk about content owners,” said Tim Gulson, PayPal’s Strategic Business Development manager. “There is a high entry level cost to becoming a broadcaster” that doesn’t apply online. PayPal is an eBay company
and created its business by serving individuals, so it is moving into the TV area by beginning with small channels that wouldn’t otherwise have the
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