François Moreau de Saint- Martin spent three years working as CTO for content at France Telecom before joining its subsidiary Viac- cess in 2007. The company is perhaps best known for its content security range of products. But since the purchase of Orca (in 2008) it
has significantly broadened its range of services and now considers the engagement of viewers and users, and their client’s accompanying interactive offerings as a key part of its growth.
Saint-Martin, a panelist at IBC’s controversial ‘Will the same players shoot again in the OTT world?” says broadcasters are much more focussed on content discovery and the management of that content. “Security and content protection is still a very important part of our business, but we are also busy helping broadcasters bring services quickly to market,” he says. “The opportunities presented by OTT technologies is obvi- ously enabling some new players to enter the industry and compete directly with established players. What’s interesting is to see is how this trend will divide. What share of viewing will go OTT and how much of that share will be retained by established broadcasters?” Saint-Martin accepts that the trend will be at different speeds depending on the region, but North America and Western Europe are likely to be at the forefront of change, “but it is also worth remembering that many existing broadcasters are fast learners. In other words in some emerging markets it could be the existing players which make the running in OTT.”
“In general I think TV is in great shape. The brands are well- known, and the best of them are very strong indeed. They know their viewers and subscribers, and have great relation- ships with content owners. But is has never been as fast- moving as it is today, and that has very real risks. Time to market is key. “Broadcasting, which used to be a slow-moving industry, now has to take on the model of the internet. These demands influ- ence us and we have hugely speeded up how we introduce products and services. For example, we launched a new gener- ation of TV for Orange Poland in just two months!” CF
advertisers extra for interactivity we need to see how the customer reacts
Christian Bombrun Deputy Managing Director
M6 Web Region: France
Syncing ads to the second screen
global economic downturn, the digital team at French commercial broadcaster M6 has several innovations designed to help turn its own numbers around. In mid-July, just a month after the first half of 2012 showed a 4% drop in year-on-year ad income for its flagship channel, M6
A
launched a ‘social experience’ app that links users to their Facebook page automatically. This month M6 rolls out a watermarking system that will operate across all screens to provide links to more information, all synchronised to the main TV programmes. The launches have been welcomed by advertisers and ad agencies in France as they look for better ways to connect with viewers. “The idea is to make the
ads from the linear channel interactive using synchronisa- tion on the second screen,” explains Christian Bombrun, deputy md, M6 Web, a
t a time when Europe’s TV
advertising market is suffering from the
By Kate Bulkley
subsidiary of the RTL Group- backed broadcaster. “Our focus is to find the right balance between the main TV and the second screen both in terms of inter- active programmes and inter- active ads.”
The M6 multi-screen app
offers viewers more ability to socialise their viewing and stay engaged with M6 programmes as well as with programmes on the broadcaster’s second channel W9. M6 is also preparing a December launch for a third free to air channel in France called 6ter and it too will be accessible through the same M6 app.
Although the company only plans to launch the app on Android in October, the Apple
iOS penetration means that 850,000 of the 3.4m French iPads have the M6 app today. M6 is already one of the TV leaders in interactivity because it has offered non-linear TV catch-up services since 2008 and because France has a high percentage of IPTV screens (some 10m house- holds are IPTV connected) so a large part of catch-up viewing is consumed on the main TV screen.
“Half of the 50 million video catch-up views a month are seen on the TV screen,” confirms Bombrun.
He believes the technology for synchronised content and advertising has been solved but the question remains about how customers will use it. “We’ve already worked with some high-end brands –150 just this year on the Replay TV service - but now we have to watch the customer response to more interactivity. How many will click? If we are going to charge advertisers extra for this we need to look at how the customer reacts over the next six months.”