Richard Kastelein, CEO of Agora Media Innovation
Connected Devices will radically change the living room over the next few years as not only connected TV's enter homes, but also consumer pickup of both smart phones and tablets will allow for dual screen interaction - providing a much more ergonomic and practical tool for engagement over the traditional TV remote.
TV apps on companion devices could very well rattle the TV broadcast industry as much as the music and print sectors have been disrupted by the advent of the Internet and the traditional value chain of Brand>Agency>Broadcaster>Consumer is going to drastically change. Some call it democratisation, others scream disruption. But for broadcasters and independent producers, there are both threats and opportunities with new paths to the consumer that fall outside of the norm as the living room gatekeeper role is fragmented.
According to Nielsen’s recent survey of nearly 12,000 connected device owners, seventy percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smartphone owners said they use their devices while watching television, compared to only 35 percent of eReader owners. And sixty-one percent of eReader owners use their device in bed, compared to 57 percent of tablet owners and 51 percent on smartphones.
Couple that with the fact Gartner predicts that well over 200 million tablets will be sold by 2014. And by 2015, more than one-third of American consumers (and likely Europeans) will use a tablet PC, says firm Forrester Research.
Triple that even with Coda Research Consultancy predicting that worldwide sales of smartphones will total 2.5 billion units throughout 2010 to 2015.
The future is written in the numbers above.
Goodbye old remote. Hello new engagement and interactive TV on the second screen... multiplatform style - with Social TV, tCommerce, game mechanics, chat, communities et al.
Companion apps, synchronised with TV programming is the future – where consumers not only interact with TV but also take it one step further and really learn by engaging in trivia quizzes, predictions, voting, and other game mechanics. And they won’t have to do it alone - the virtual communities around the shows will allow for cooperative experiences as well.
And there are plenty of opportunities for broadcasters to tap into new channels for advertising, IP metrics, selling via affiliation models or direct deals with brands, interactive experiences and much more. However, broadcasters are not alone in moving into the second screen arena and there are threats as well – carriers like Orange and Vodaphone, Content Producers such as Endemol and Freemantle, Google TV, Yahoo and Apple, IPTV Set Top Box builders like Boxee and Roku, cable companies, CE manufacturers – Samsung and Toshiba as well as third party developers (Miso, Philo, Getglue and IntoNow in the USA) all have their sights on this emerging landscape. The second screen represents a new, exciting angle on entertainment on a number of levels – both for consumers and broadcasters to engage and interact. Broadcasters have a large lead – as they have the clear advantage in the media stacking realm (multitasking viewers) by having strong brand relationships and access to scripts in order to pre-trigger second screen events using modifications and upgrades to their playout systems or other technologies such as audio fingerprinting and watermarking to push engagement to the second screens.
Facebook's sheer numbers, 1.65 billion likes of TV shows is indicative of where audience measurement systems are going. Target audience numbers are dead. Agencies and brands? It's going to be a love-hate relationship. Better audience measurement due to a combination of social recommendations and IP analytics means better targeting, but it also means more work in drilling down on the voluminous data. Ad rates are set to go through the grinder and make it all a lot more complex for a lot of people. The old Brand-Agency-Broadcaster-Audience value chain is going to be a lot more complex... and much harder work.
Richard Kastelein is the CEO of Agora Media Innovation (AMI) in London, UK and Publisher of www.appmarket.tv - a popular online publication that’s focused on Social TV, TV Apps, Multiplatform, Connected TV and Transmedia Formats. He's a Canadian expatriate based in both the UK and The Netherlands and was Winner of 2010 Deloitte Tech., Media & Telcom (TMT) Predictions for Entrepreneurs in Holland for futurist views on Social TV and Media Convergence. AMI is an integrated agency that works with emerging technologies that enable broadcasters, cable companies, content creators, developers and CE manufacturers in delivering and consulting around the emerging convergence.