September 23, 2010

Broadcasters must move with the times, but not forget what works, writes Kate Bulkley.

We’re currently in the season of TV conferences, where the luvvies and the techies chew the proverbial television fat. The 2010 autumnal buzz is about Google TV, watching BBC iPlayer through your PlayStation, and whether a QWERTY keyboard or a smartphone is the best way to turn your TV viewing from passive to active. In short, it’s about connected devices and how they might change TV.

At the IBC technology fair in Amsterdam were connected TVs, connected phones, connected set-top boxes, connected iPads, connected netbooks and, well, you get the picture. If it wasn’t connected, it wasn’t on show (unless it was a 3D demo).

Forecasts say that connected devices will grow from 1.7 billion today to nearly 5 billion by 2020 - and every manufacturer is jumping on board.

A senior technology exec from NHK - Japan’s public service broadcaster since 1925 - posed this question: “Do we become a public service media by actively working with the internet?”

His answer was that broadcasters need to “reinvent and adapt themselves” and find a way to work with the new technologies. And he’s right. As Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said at IFA in Germany earlier this month: “It’s a terrifying and exciting time, especially for incumbents.”

The people who have traditionally pulled TV’s strings for so long are not fully in control, and in some cases seem to have ceded control to the techies.

Schmidt was in Germany previewing Google TV, which launches in the US late this year and in Europe early next year. Google TV will basically put a browser and the ability to search the internet on your TV set.

Google showcased YouTube (of course) and proclaimed that as people’s cameras “get better” so will YouTube’s videos. Well, they may get sharper, but whether they will actually be worth watching is another thing entirely. But as more and more broadcasters such as Channel 4 and Channel 5 put their programmes on the site, the distinction of what is TV and what is the internet will blur even more.

YouTube is ready: its new ‘leanback’ feature will know if the site is being displayed on a big screen, and automatically adjust to fill it. And any new Google Android smartphone will also serve as a TV remote control for Google TV, as well as the Google-supplied QWERTY keyboard. Do I hear the drumming of a Google ecosystem?

The point is there is no going back. Philip O’Ferrall, senior vice-president of digital media at MTV Networks International, boldly said: “The future of television is search and recommendation.” With more than 500 million Facebook users and 100 million Twitter users, social media is not going away. The internet cognoscenti envision the power of having your friends, not an EPG or paper guide, recommending what you watch.

Broadcasters mustn’t be naysayers about this new technology. They must create things that work in the new connected world, but not by throwing out the old funding models too quickly. It is a balancing act, but when Schmidt says he understands what people want, broadcasters need to remember that they have been serving up stuff that people love for decades.