The thing about ‘TV everywhere’ is that no one expected the term to be taken quite so literally. Yet that’s just what we have these days: TV really is just about everywhere: on set top boxes, on apps, on demand, on streaming services, on sites that never had long form video, on tablets and smartphones and gaming devices. Pity the poor consumer who has to make sense of it all.
It’s only going to get worse, as more networks decide to go it alone; setting up their own apps and websites where viewers can go to find the shows they want to watch.
While this creates massive confusion for the viewer, it also creates massive opportunity for whoever comes up with a way to harness the chaos. What’s needed is a standard framework off which all this new programming can hang, a common system for finding shows and then accessing them so that the user can watch them. This might mean changing the channel on the set top box, opening an app, setting a reminder to record a series, or anything in between.
The ideal framework, which will live as an app on a tablet-sized device, will have several key elements. The first, and most important for most viewers, will be a watch list, a place to keep track of all the shows they’re currently watching or want to watch. This is going to be the first place they go to and they’ll want to be able to tune in immediately. It sounds like a simple request, but given the array of apps and devices and rights issues the framework will need to navigate, enabling instant tune-in may be the trickiest feature of all.
Another key element will be a search function that allows for voice commands and natural language recognition. The challenge here will be robust meta-tagging, making sure that every show has enough descriptors around it so that when someone calls out “find the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Leonard’s mother came to visit” the search engine is able to find it.
This framework will also be the place where additional or second screen content will live, whether it’s meant to be watched or played with before, during or after the show. This will provide ways for fans to have deeper interactions without having to install another app or find and open a web page.
The final, and perhaps most critical piece, will be a recommendation engine, a way to surface shows and movies the viewer might like to watch. It’s got to be able to draw from long form (over 20 minutes) as well as short and mid form. That means looking at YouTube as well as more traditional networks, plus streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, movie services like Vudu, and newcomers like AOL and Yahoo. It also means learning each viewer’s likes and dislikes in order to improve accuracy.
So who will build this magical interface? The logical choice is the pay TV operators or broadband providers themselves, as they will have access to all the user data. And this is the problem: the networks are not going to want the operators to control all that data as it gives them the upper hand in any future negotiations.
But make no mistake – data holds the real value here. Whoever controls the framework controls the data about user behaviour: what shows are most popular, what viewers are putting on their watch lists, what commercials they’re avoiding, which ones they’re sticking with to completion, which recommendations they’re acting on and which ones they’re ignoring. It’s incredibly valuable for both advertising and programming decisions and whoever owns that data can get top dollar for it.
There are a few third party companies dabbling in the space right now. San Francisco-based Yidio, who I do some marketing work for, create their own metadata for the discovery app that currently boasts 17 million users. Jinni, an Israeli-based startup that Microsoft has invested in, uses an algorithm that pairs “taste buddies” – users with similar tastes in shows and movies, to fuel the recommendations it white labels for major providers. Then there are the stalwarts like Rovi and Gracenote who currently provide the data for today’s electronic program guides and are thus in position to ramp up to meet the challenges of this brave new world.
A well-designed, user friendly guide that lets viewers sort through the mountains of TV programming now available is a win for everyone: programmers, viewers, and most of all the company that comes up with the solution, since the data they’ll gather will be digital gold.
Alan Wolk is a consultant on the business and future of TV and is a senior analyst at TDG. Follow him on Twitter @awolk.
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