Broadcasters are being cautioned against the over-use of second screen services, which when badly implemented could pull viewers away from the very content that is being promoted.
Feargal Kelly, KIT digital’s VP of media solutions, says broadcasters need to move way from what he calls ‘passive second screen socialising’ to one that creates stickiness and increases viewer engagement with the content.
“The level of misunderstanding of the second screen socializing purpose is so high, that some of the apps that allow viewers to message each other while watching TV are supplied by broadcasters and channel owners themselves,” he says.
Kelly says that rather than place watermarking within the video, as is the case with the Zeebox social media application, broadcasters should put effort into the backend as was the case with Red Button apps. By using metadata it becomes possible to sync content that is frame accurate.
Such an approach would work not only with broadcast and on demand content, but also radio.
KIT digital has implemented so-called timeline tagging into its new suite of apps for RTE. The Irish public broadcaster has picked up on KIT Cosmos cloud-based solution.
“If every show were to do their own app there would be far too many, it’s even the case with channels, so it’s an operator level thing,” explains Kelly.
The idea is to put forward social media content that is collapsible and not the main focus of attention for the viewer.
