A clutch of reports this week tell seemingly different stories, but all point to a subtle shift in television consumption patterns, writes Julian Clover
Sometimes you find that data, or at least people’s interpretation of it, is pulling you in opposite directions. So this week we had reports saying subscribers are trying out the new applications made available through TiVo, while at the same time the discovery is that people are sticking to the brands they know.
Of course the statements are not necessarily inconsistent with each other. Out there in the world of connected TV apps you see the same brands that are everywhere else, be in on the web, on your smartphone, or on the TV proper. The out of town shopping areas have the same brands that are, or once were, on the high street. So there’s no reason why connected TV should be any different. Cream will always rise to the top, particularly if the dairy concerned has a TV channel that it can use to promote its new apps or services.
Already I am looking forward to quoting the Strategy Analytics research – that Facebook is not really of interest in the TV world – to anyone at IBC who tries to show me a Facebook on the TV app.
Faniliarity was a common thread in the research findings made public this week. HIS, the artist formerly known as Screen Digest, said that in the UK the percentage of viewing to non-linear broadcasts would be just 12.7%. It echoed findings by Oliver and Ohlbaum from around a year ago that went onto say that much of the on demand viewing would simply displace PVR recordings.
The main achievement then of on demand television is to let us off the hook when we forget to press the record button. In the future we just summon it up from our connected TVs or set-top box (as opposed to 3DTVs, because according to Ofcom no one is buying those).
It is, as this column has remarked before, in the interests of the TV manufacturers to keep rolling out the new product. Likewise the TV platforms have to convince the public at large that by signing on the dotted line they are part of a trend as opposed to the niche. Cue comments about a particular service being what the public were asking for, like maybe Facebook on the TV.
What this really means is that we are in the middle of a television evolution, as opposed to a revolution, which so many people would want us to believe. That proportion of on demand viewing will continue to grow, but at a steady pace, and making clear that it is just as much subscriber retention as it is revenue generating.
