TVP’s hybrid platform will add an apps EPG with recommendations and VOD to its offer this February, according to Wieslaw Lodzikowski, director of the broadcaster’s technology department.
This, in his view, should take the number of people who use it from the current 170,000 to 500,000 by the end of the year.
Lodzikowski said that TVP treats the hybrid platform as an add-on to the channels it distributes on the country’s first and third DTT multiplexes, where it has four and eight slots respectively.
This, for instance, saw it create TVP Zagle, a ‘virtual on demand channel’, that was watched by over 60,000 people each day.
TVP now also uses HbbTV to offer 16 regional channels and has in addition created a service that supplies public information on emergencies/crises direct to viewers’ screens.
The fourth and final stage of this service, is unique to Europe and only exists in a similar version in Japan, will be completed by August 31.
Interestingly, Lodzikowski said that TVP does little marketing of its hybrid platform and that sport, as a genre, is particularly effective at increasing awareness.
He also said that he would like both cable and satellite operators to sign up to the platform and that there was particular resistance from the latter to do so.
