SCREEN DIGEST FUTURE OF MEDIA DISTRIBUTION – LONDON. Exactly what happens when the consumer first switches on the television display became a key debating point at Screen Digest’s annual media distribution event.
Ben Keen, Screen Digest’s chief analyst said the increasingly fragmented experience for the consumer meant that a number of devices would try to compete with each other. “Who’s content will pop up on the screen first, will it be Samsung, will it be your pay-TV devices or will it be Google?
There was a fierce debate among the panelists as to the role of Apple and Google TV after Jeremy Allaire Chairman & CEO, Brightcove suggested that the two providers would be the two leading platforms, also describing the Silicon Valley-two as being realatively open.
Alex Green executive director, commercial, TV & online, Virgin Media, naturually disagreed, arguing that the cableco’s launch of the TiVo platform represented the first time that a known operator would bring a connected TV platform to a mass audience: “We definitely see an early opportunity for context related ecommerce on the TV, whether that’s you watched the film, you may want the DVD, that’s fairly obvious,” he said. “There have been failed experiences with ecommerce on the main screen, so we’re not going to bombard the consumer with things they can do on the TV”. Green added that enhanced gaming would also be a part of Virgin’s new proposition and that the company was in talks with gaming providers.
Another issue highlighted by Keen was the monetisation of over-the-top services, the amount of revenues doubling in most major European markets, but lead by the UK, France, Germany and Spain. In all of them it was the free-to-air broadcasters that were driving the most revenues.
