Deloitte’s media and technology team have also predicted that in 2012 the total number of apps available from all application stores will exceed two million. Last year, the size of the apps market more than doubled in 2011, reaching one million apps in December.

 

This year has seen some particularly interesting announcements that really seem to point the way for TV trends in 2012. Yet ultimately, it's up to consumers, and what devices truly capture their imagination and drive mainstream adoption.

1. Connected TV

While last year was all about 3D TVs, this year's CES focusses on a range of smart, connected TVs.

Google once again jumps into the fray, announcing a new array of partners for Google TV 2.0.  But as the Guardian points out, "Certainly you can sell TVs with smart capability built in; the question is whether you can find anything smart out there to watch...As long as TV companies can make more money from selling their programs to each other than they can through Google, this is going to be an uphill battle for the search giant."

2. Interactive TV

Interactivity is one of the most interesting developments coming out of connected TV. While interactive TV as a concept has been around a while, this is the first time where the experience is becoming more simple and user-friendly.

This generation of smart TVs offer new ways to interact, with the addition of voice recognition and gesture control. For example, Lenovo's new Android-based TV responds to voice commands, cutting out the need for complex remote controls. This follows up on rumours around Apple bringing Siri to TV, along with XBox Kinect's newly released voice controls.

Additionally, LG and Samsung have also both announced voice recognition and gesture control to their smart TVs- opening the door for TV apps and slicker, richer user interfaces.

3. Second Screen

A flurry of new second screen devices have also been announced this year.

In the smartphone arena, some analysts are predicting a Nokia-comeback, with the release of the Nokia 900. According to recent figures, just one third of American adults own smartphones – leaving plenty of space in the market for the Nokia/Windows collaboration to grow into.

The second screen continues to make inroads as a video device as Samsung extends its Media Hub to TVs. This will give its viewers the ability to watch content seamlessly on any device, feeding into TV everywhere strategies. This includes Dish's CES announcement to stream VOD to their iPad app

Additionally, the second screen companion app is slowly starting to become a reality. Both Audible Magic and Civolution have announced new technology at CES that helps apps synch effortlessly with live TV content.

The continued innovation in second screen arena  demonstrates that consumers are going to own more and more connected devices as we go forward into 2012. As a result, the number of viewers multi-tasking while they watch TV will surely continue to sky-rocket.

The combination of connected TV, increased second screen adoption, and increasing interactivity make second-generation strategies key in 2012. Judging by the new technology at CES, the TV market looks like it will continue to fragment, opening up new opportunities for creating, distributing and marketing content.

Emma Wells, Marketing Manager

What CES trends do you think are the most important? Will consumers embrace or reject interactive TV?

The Connected TV Marketing Association (CTVMA) launched yesterday in New York, London and Melbourne, Australia, along with individuals from 47 chapters around the world. With projections that connected TVs “make up to 90% of the global TV market by 2014, with sales reaching 123 million,” the CTVMA was founded to help organize and promote a quickly-growing industry.

I will be serving as an advisor and co-chair in North America of events and networking. The implications for connected TVs with social is obvious. The more internet enabled your TV becomes the more opportunities there will be to bridge apps and social platforms, like we recently covered.

We spoke with Zach Weiner, the Co-Founder and President, North America of the CTVMA about the importance of social TV within the newly formed association.

Lost Remote: Why did you launch the CTVMA?

Zach Weiner: We launched due to a genuine need that exists in the industry. We have a device/medium that has suddenly changed and evolved in amazing ways. This evolution is disruptive to nearly every aspect of the ecosystem. With these changes has come an incredible amount of challenges, but also opportunity. Our core reason for existence is help navigate the ways that the marketing, technology and device community can all come together to achieve potential. We hope to help educate, inform and provide oversight for the industry at large.

LR: How and why is social TV an important part of the CTVMA?

ZW: We believe that social TV is one of the core elements that truly enlivens Connected TV and makes it relevant. Television with an endemic connection to the internet allows for watching behaviors to be socialized in amazingly new and novel ways. New TV apps that are being created and App branding vehicles will all be highly social. EPGs and even programming itself will all have social graphs at their core  It’s a strong area of our focus and an area that has an incredibly high potential for growth in our minds.

LR: What’s the CTVMA’s global reach?

ZW: We currently have Country presidents all over the world. Our other founder James Grant Hay, is located in Melbourne and has established a CTVMA presence throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Our European counterparts are all incredibly well established thought leaders.

LR: Who are some of the key thinkers that are part of the launch?

ZW: Our Chairmen are all exceptionally well-known in the industry:

Dr. William Cooper- Our UK Chairman- Of Informitv- previously was the Head of interactive for BBC Broadcast
Niko Munoz- Is the EVP of Havas, our country leader in Spain.
Doug Scott, our U.S. Chair is the president of Ogilvy Entertainment.
Tim Hanlon- Our Vice Chair has had stints running some of the largest media investment arms of major agencies like Publicis and IPG.
Richard Kastelein –  is the owner of Richard is the owner of Appmarket.tv and a partner of Agora Media Innovation and in general a wide and varied speaker on social TV.

Our entire board consists of some amazing leaders in general.

Filed Under  connected TV, ctvma, social TV

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Fantastic news

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Click here for our special report on Twitter's business →

The conventional wisdom about Twitter is that it may be a very nice product, but it doesn't have much of a business. And up until recently, that was true. And the fact that Twitter has been mostly dodging questions about its business metrics helps perpetuate the idea. 

But we think it's not true anymore. 

After a bit of fumbling, which is normal for a company exploring a new medium, Twitter has been quietly but steadily rolling out its ad units. And evidence thus far suggests that they have been performing really well.

Yesterday SAI reporter Ellis Hamburger "spoke with Hilary Smith, SVP of Communications for Digital content at NBC. She informed me that Promoted Tweets NBC has purchased have been shockingly successful, and have received a ton of engagement from Twitter users." Hamburger wrote that when he first saw Twitter ads they were actually useful and relevant, and this has been this analyst's experience as well.

A few weeks ago Electronic Arts said its Promoted Trend also exceeded expectations. 

In our conversations with ad industry insiders as part of our special report on Twitter's business, they said Twitter's ads showed lots of promise. They said Twitter still needs to work on some aspects, but Twitter seems to be improving every day.

Therefore, this is what we're prepared to say about Twitter's business:

• It's still early days—and that's the point. Right now, Twitter's "promoted tweets" (ad tweets that show up in a user's Twitter stream) only show up on Twitter.com. Soon they will show up in Twitter's broader application ecosystem. And the ad system keeps getting refined: for example, ads can only be targeted on a handful of metrics. What we're seeing right now is very impressive—and yet it's just an inkling of the future. 
• Twitter ads have the potential of being a drug for marketers. Twitter charges ads by "engagement" (clicks, replies, retweets or follows), and ads can generate social media conversations around a brand. In other words, Twitter may have cracked the code on allowing advertisers to create genuine social media conversations around a brand. That would be a tool marketers simply couldn't get enough of.
• Twitter is the new TV. It's where you tune in to see what's going on around the world (and with your friends). And in exchange, there is limited commercial interruption. And on the whole, that interruption is fine for users and lucrative for publishers.

We previously estimated Twitter's revenue opportunity at $2 billion, using low revenue-per-user estimates compared to Twitter's peers. This might prove to be the low end.

Don't Miss Our Special Report On Twitter's Business And Valuation →

What are we missing? Email comments and questions to pegobry@businessinsider.com

This note was published as part of BI Research, a new industry intelligence service from Business Insider. The service is currently in beta and is free. To learn more and sign up, please click here.

It refers to Twitter as "the new TV..."

Real-time content isn't dead. It's just thriving in platforms other than search engines. Mass Relevance and Crimson Hexagon introduced separate partnerships to help marketers curate and publish Twitter content on television, along with Web sites, mobile and large-screen displays. The partnership between Twitter and Mass Relevance allows the companies to license and display any of the more than 250 million tweets sent daily from about 100 million users. Mass Relevance's integrates Twitter tweets into its platform and filters the content. The company also supports an API that allows agencies to build a front-end user to display the content. Mass Relevance CEO Sam Decker said the deal permits media publishers to monetize Twitter content around their own. The company became the first of several partners officially licensed to re-syndicate Twitter content for display on television and other media, including billboards. Mass Relevance powered the Twitter integration of NBC's "The Voice," and is working closely on joint projects such as the White House's recent Twitter Town Hall. Tweets would show up as a lower third on "The Voice," for example. Decker said the platform can filter 4,000 tweets per minute, down to about 30 that might go on the screen during some TV shows. The tweets served on TV are in near real-time. The deal will help turn social into more followers, tweets and sharing, Decker said. "It's about bringing earned media into owned and paid media to make them more effective," he said. "One thing we know is real-time social content offers more engagement than typical advertising marketing messages." Twitter said it doesn't view these partnerships as a revenue-generating source, but rather as ways to increase the company's presence on television as it tries to expand its services.

Courtesy of Christoph Jenke : . )

Umami is a new iPad app that aims to bring an enhanced, second-screen experience to broadcast and cable TV programming.

Second screen apps are becoming standard fare for networks. Using audio fingerprinting technology, these apps can tell what you’re watching — and provide an updated, customized experience based on the show.

At the Mashable Media Summit last week, second screen experiences were highlighted as one of the major media trends of 2012. Until now, however, most of these experiences have been crafted specifically around one show or network.

This requires users to download individual apps for the shows or networks they frequently watch. Umami aims to work with a large cross-section of programs and networks, both broadcast and cable-based. The app offers quick access to cast and crew listings, descriptions of other recent episodes, quick links to official social media accounts and related tweets from across the web.

How it Works

After downloading Umami for the iPad [iTunes link], users just need to start the app. It will listen to the audio coming from a TV or computer and use audio fingerprinting to identify the show.

The basic information Umami offers is surprisingly solid. Even for a program like Scrubs, which no longer has new episodes but is frequently seen in syndication, the app offers up quick access to Wikipedia information, episode summaries and cast members’ IMDb links.

For current shows like Two and a Half Men, the app can go a step further and offer links to official Facebook and Twitter accounts for the show and its stars.

Deeper Potential

Networks or television shows that join Umami’s publishing platform, naturally, have more potential. The app has signed on a number of launch partners — including the National Geographic Channel — and select programs will take advantage of more enhanced features, such as additional information about a topic discussed in a show and links to photos.

A Solid Start

In a demo that the Umami team showed me earlier this fall, I got a glimpse at some of the integration potential for news programming. I like Umami’s user interface, and appreciate the broad approach the company is taking to the second screen.

While it’s clear that partnerships using its publishing platform will yield the best results, even the more basic integration offers up a kind of TV Guide on steroids. I love having quick access to links related to what I’m watching.

It would be great to see Umami evolve into partnering or linking with some of the existing social checkin platforms, such as GetGlue. Part of Umami’s value play is that it is one app, rather than a collection of separate apps. In that vein, embracing other types of checkin services would give it even more value for end-users.

Umami is free and available now. Let us know what you think about second-screen apps and TV personalization in the comments.

Connecting the kids

Connected TVs are changing the way people access and engage with content, while tablets are opening up dual-screen options. But what will these changes mean for the kids TV market? Andrew McDonald reports.

Although web-connected TVs are still not the norm in most households, sales are increasing rapidly. According to GfK stats, roughly 12% of the 46 million TV sets bought in Western Europe last year included access to the web.

This figure has already increased to 19% of the 20.6 million sets sold in the first half of this year, and with Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and games consoles also offering ways for viewers to access the web, players from all areas of the TV market are increasingly looking to exploit the possibilities of the internet.

One firm on the cutting edge of these developments is Capablue, a company that specialises in video-on-demand and connected TV apps. The firm has already worked with some of the major UK broadcasters and head of business development Craig Chuter (left) believes there are lots of opportunities for kids-focused content.

"While we have not created an application around kids' content, we are talking to various clients about developing in the connected TV space. There is a lot of excitement around the opportunity to combine video content and interactive services to enable both entertainment and learning," says Chuter.

"With the TV predominantly being a living-room experience it is ideal for shared and learning experiences such as parent and child – more so than the PC. An important element of developing for the 'large screen' is understanding that it is neither a website nor mobile app, but something completely different," he adds, claiming that as more "companion device apps evolve," the opportunities for inputting text, navigating pages, entering competitions and playing games will also improve.

Recent research by US non-profit organisation The Kaiser Family Foundation found that kids aged eight to 18 spend an average of seven hours and 38 minutes a day consuming media, through activities like watching TV and playing computer games. However, thanks to multi-tasking on devices such as mobile phones, they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes of media content into that time.

So how are kids' TV networks rising to the challenge of web-connected TV screens and the behaviour shift towards consuming content across more than one screen simultaneously? Japhet Asher, the executive producer of CBBC Online, says the channel's plans for connected TVs are still "pretty embryonic." However, its existing multi-platform strategy is already starting to bridge the divide between online content and linear TV.

The BBC has already developed a CBBC version of the iPlayer, while CBBC's brand content strategy also extends to online games and live programme interaction. Last year, for example, the corporation created a section on the website for its Saturday morning show Live 'n' Deadly to let kids connect to the series by sending messages through a real-time, Twitter-style service, which ran alongside a simulcast online stream of the programme.

"We had something around 70,000 unique users a week coming in to experience Live 'n' Deadly online, as well as on television – that's a lot," says Asher. "It had a lot to do with the popularity of (presenter) Steve Backshall and the Deadly brand. But it also showed us that when you let the audience have extra engagement, they come, and they're delighted to have had that opportunity to be part of that process."

"The value of being able to bring together what we're doing on the website with what's happening on-screen is huge, and that obviously will transfer to hand-held devices and IPTV over the coming year or two," adds Asher. However, with a core audience of 6-12s, he is also cautious that the channel doesn't "precede the marketplace and precede the audience" when it comes to developing dual-screen content.

Nickelodeon too is treating dual screen with some degree of trepidation. Philip O'Ferrall (left) is senior VP of digital for Viacom International and works across the kids' network and other channels in the portfolio like MTV. He claims that developing dual-screen content is currently more of a priority for adult audiences, but says Nickelodeon is not ruling it out, pinpointing tablet devices as a particular area of interest.

"For the kids' market, it will come later, because the device proliferation may take a bit more time to catch up," says O'Ferrall. However, he says it is only a matter of time before children have access to the best technology in their bedrooms. "When the devices are there, they will be the ones teaching the parents how to use them and that goes with any new technology. Connected home is coming, and it's very real in many households. The tablet is a good example where you'll see that being more commonplace," he adds.

O'Ferrall says Nickelodeon's engagement strategy is already "very 360-focused." The network promotes brands such as SpongeBob SquarePants online and also has a series of standalone multiplayer games, such as Monkey Quest and Neopet. However, the executive claims that TV remains its "lifeblood" and says the natural extension of web-connected TV and dual-screen content will be "strangely back to linear, where there is going to be some playalong and some interactivity."

A recent IHS Screen Digest study agrees. The research shows that the vast majority of TV viewing will remain real-time and linear for years to come, with DVR and on-demand viewing only expected to account for 15.8% of programmes watched in the US in 2015, and 12.7% in the UK in the same year. This is up only slightly from 9.9% in the US and 7.8% in the UK last year.

Samsung is a leading light in the internet-connected TV space and for content services manager Darren Petersen, the potential of Samsung's built-in app platform goes far beyond catch-up services. Games, subscription film rental and social networking services are already among the 90 apps available for the firm's connected TVs.

"You'll see a lot of services that have become available online through PC-type devices migrating back to the television, which is where they belong," says Petersen, predicting that connected kids-based content will also start to progress with the platform – especially given that Samsung's marketing efforts have now shifted from 3D TVs last year to smart TVs this year. He adds: "You'll see the services evolve to offer more children's content that will perhaps become a little bit more interactive as we move forward. We have a lot of games already, and a lot of kids' games, which are more education-focused."

Disney aims to meet this technological challenge head-on. VP for digital media distribution Chiara Cipriani says connected TV technology generates more opportunities for audiences to sample its content, feeding into its existing multi-platform franchise-led strategy. "In these environments, brands are increasingly important and as Disney we have an advantage in this space as viewers are drawn to brands they recognise and trust," says Cipriani.

The Mouse House recently signed its first film subscription on-demand deal in the UK with LoveFilm, which is available on a number of platforms. Meanwhile, in Belgium, Disney has been working with Telenet to pilot a multi-screen strategy that will make its content available on PC, iPhone and iPad through the cable network's TV Everywhere-style service Yelo. "We need to be wherever our audiences are, and among kids and younger people, that is undeniably in the multi-screen, multi-tasking world," adds Cipriani, pointing out that Disney's TV brands already exist across apps, games, music and e-books.

Another notable connected-screen initiative starting to take shape in the US is UltraViolet. Though Disney is not yet part of UltraViolet, the digital service is backed by a powerful consortium of 70 studios, technology firms and retailers, and is designed to introduce a common standard for buying and accessing video content across a number of different devices, including smartphones, tablets and connected TVs.

While this has the potential to shore up flagging DVD sales by bundling digital access rights with physical media, it could also have profound implications on how families access media at home – both through their TVs and other devices.

"An UltraViolet account can have customised log-ins for up to six different family or household members. What that means is you can let your kids have a log-in and be able to use and access your family's digital collection, but you have choices in how they do so," explains UltraViolet's general manager and executive director Mark Teitell. "Today, in many cases, families are faced with a more binary choice. Most services just have a user ID and a log-in that an account holder would have. So either you give that to your children or you don't. The idea behind UltraViolet is you shouldn't really be forced to make that choice."

Through this service, parents will be able to put locks on content, allowing their children to access only age-appropriate films. They will even be able to dictate whether they are allowed to download or simply stream programmes and films from given devices.

Although Screen Digest analyst Dan Cryan says it is still too early to say how UltraViolet will play out with consumers, in a rapidly moving digital space, where kids are increasingly accessing media through different devices and a range of online services, he believes that changes to the content delivery model are definitely afoot.

"There are concerns about extrapolating too far from the behaviour of teenagers; different life-stages lend themselves to different modes of behaviour. But at the same time, we may well be staring down the barrel of some quite significant changes in viewing behaviour," says Cryan. "By gut, you've got to say that viewing habits are changing. It's just a question of how fast."

2 Nov 2011
© C21 Media 2011

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Celebrating the first anniversary of Kinect's launch, Microsoft has announced that its commercial Kinect for Windows program will officially launch "early next year." While the official software development kit has been in beta since June and hackers have been playing with Kinect since it launched, this'll bring the big shiny official push for Kinect on Windows.

Though Microsoft focuses on the non-gaming applications for Kinect on Windows in today's announcement, it'll surely bring new and exciting opportunities to wave your arms at video games on your PC too.

Microsoft says that its commercial pilot program for Kinect on Windows has drawn interest from fields including healthcare, education, and art, receiving over 200 applications.

"We saw Kinect being used by therapists and physicians as part of a rehabilitation program for stroke victims, as a skill-building technique for children with autism, and as an application for hospitals in Spain enabling surgeons to scroll through medical images in the operating room with gestures so they could avoid the need to rescrub," Microsoft explains in a blog post using the appalling term "Kinect Effect."

A few of those non-video game uses are shown off in a video Microsoft has whipped together:

Google will update its Google TV during the next few weeks, beginning with the Sony Google TV sets. Logitech devices will be updated to Google TV 2.0 soon therafter.
Google has focused on four areas of user feedback. First: keep it simple. The interface is now much simpler. The new customisable home screen gets viewers to their favourite content quickly. And within “all apps” people can see all of their shortcuts, similar to an Android phone or tablet.
Second: make it easy to find something worth watching. Google said they have improved search across the board for content from live TV, Netflix, YouTube, HBO Go, and more.
But what if a viewer doesn’t know what to search for? There’s now an app called “TV & Movies” that let’s the viewer easily browse through 80,000 movies and TV episodes across cable or satellite, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and many other sites.
Third: make YouTube better on TV. Google is launching a new YouTube experience specifically built for Google TV. It is now fast and easy to get to HD-quality YouTube entertainment. YouTube is now also more closely integrated with Google TV search, so that people can turn virtually any topic – mountain biking, cooking, etc. – into a channel.
And finally: bring more apps to TV. Google is opening up the TV to the creativity of content creators large and small through Android Market. Android developers can now bring existing mobile apps or entirely new ones to TV.
Initially, the number of apps won’t be large – apps requiring a touch screen, GPS, or telephony won’t show up – but 50 developers have seeded the Market with cool and useful apps for the TV. We’re excited to see the number of apps grow.
The news was posted on the official Google TV blog by Mario Queiroz, VP product management, and Vincent Dureau, director of engineering: “We look forward in the coming months to announcing new software updates as well as new devices on new chipsets from multiple hardware partners.”

Western Digital TV Content Streamer Outstrips Smart TV Sales

By David Richards | Thursday | 20/10/2011

Leading storage Company Western Digital claims to have sold close to one million of their WD TV Live streaming media players during the past 12 months in Australia, this is significantly more than the combined sales of Smart TV’s from both Samsung LG and Sony.

Now the storage Company is looking for content deals with the Company open to discussions with Telstra and Blockbuster with a view to delivering both movies and TV shows via their TV device.

Speaking at the launch of a new Wi Fi version of their TV player yesterday the Company said that the $149 device was proving extremely popular in Australia and that for only $100 extra users can attach a 1TB drive that allows content to be accessed over a network as well as via a tablet.

Damien Hodge the Business Development Manager for WD said that the Company was now focusing on delivering additional content and download services on the new WD media streamer that comes with access to a variety of Web services, such as YouTube, Flickr and Facebook. 

Hodges admitted that the Company had been slack in not chasing down content despite a promise 12 months ago at the launch of the original WD TV device that local content would be a priority for the US Company.

When questioned about the volume of sales and whether GFK tracked the device as a media player or storage devices Hodges said "GFK do not track these devices. Their reports are garbage. They don't track JB Hi Fi or Officeworks and this is where we sell a lot of these product" he said.

He added "We are now looking at content seriously and we are open to talking to Telstra about their new Unified Application that delivers access to movies and TV content. We are also open to discussions with Blockbuster. We are currently talking to TV Companies about access to TV programmes" he said. 

Featuring a brand new interface the new streamer delivers support for 7.1 Dolby True HD sound tracks as well as games such as Chess and Black Jack Royale. 

The new HD Wireless TV device is sleeker than the original device; it also comes with Wi-Fi integrated directly into the box. 

US Smart TV users have access to  Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, and Hulu Plus as standard, with the new WD TV the Company is now offering users access to applications such as Spotify, Pandora, Blockbuster On Demand, and TuneIn Radio.  

In Australia none of these services are available with the exception of Facebook and You Tube.

 

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When we first started to see TVs offer a connection to the Internet, we knew that they had something other than Twitter updates planned for us. Okay, so we know that being able to tweet what we thought of a show or sporting event is a big deal for some, but the apps that are of more importance to most consumers are those that feature gaming.

The first TV maker to fully realize this is Samsung, so we were not surprised when they brought out their Samsung Smart TV range, which supported a whole host of new apps, all of which are available from their dedicated store. The power of social gaming was never taken that seriously, but it’s hard to ignore how popular Facebook and Zynga have been with these games.

Now Samsung did have one or two games available at launch, but it takes time to build relationships and for developers to realize the potential, as this was a new market to do what has become so popular for the computer and tablet and to bring it in front of our sofas.

Thankfully, PlayJam was able to see this potential and a few months ago made hundreds of games available to those with a Samsung Smart TV. Now we are not trying to kid ourselves here, they are never going to compete with the PS3 or Xbox 360 in terms of graphics. But where it will compete is price and the fun factor. Okay, so there are hundreds of games on consoles that offer the same, but you have to pay for that privilege.

The gaming apps available are still basic in graphical terms and also how you can interact with them socially. However, what Samsung and their partnered developers have taught us is that there is so much more to come.

For those who are not convinced, then think back to the beginning of 2010, when experts in the computer market dismissed a device that has now become a market leader – that would be the iPad. The potential of social gaming on your TV is massive, and we are glad that the biggest TV maker in the world (Samsung) is behind it. To keep fully up-to-date with what Samsung has planned with their Smart TV apps, then visit their Facebook page.

Using apps to tell stories

Shaftesbury Films chairman and CEO Christina Jennings tells David Jenkinson how the launch of a narrative app this fall is defining a new direction for the business.

Christina Jennings (left) is one of the more considered people in the TV business. When you ask her a question, she doesn't rush to answer. But when the answer comes, it's worth noting.

Her creativity and consistency were recognised this year when she received the Achievement Award from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, not least for drama series like The Listener and Murdoch Mysteries.

Since 1987, Jennings has overseen Canadian prodco Shaftesbury Films' growth, and seen many changes down the years, but perhaps none so diverse as those that currently present themselves. "How we all approach the business is completely changing," she says. "We saw it coming but now it's definitely here.

"It's no longer the case that we pitch shows to broadcasters, who do the heavy lifting – commissioning them, scheduling them, marketing them – we are the ones who are now responsible for creating content brands, and perhaps then talking to a broadcaster afterwards.

"It was a real shift for me this year when I realised that we could no longer just walk into a broadcaster and say, 'Buy my show.' You have to walk in now with a strategy that says, 'Here's what I can do to help create a new brand.' Or else you go out there and buy famous books to adapt, and it can't all be about that."

For Jennings, using digital media to support her existing content brands and germinating new ones is imperative. The company already works to bridge TV seasons with digital initiatives (such as a Twitter series featuring video from behind the scenes and in the writers' room between seasons three and four of drama The Listener), but Shaftesbury is now leading with the digital piece.

"We have recognised that, fundamentally, our industry was based on the broadcaster as gatekeeper, and they are now pressured. So we have to help them," she says. "Those days of fully financing shows are just going away. We help by bringing ideas about ways to finance and pre-launch new content brands, build new back-end models and redefine the next generation of production."

If the company doesn't stay on top of all the components in the digital content piece, Jennings believes her broadcast clients will default to easier choices, picking up established franchises and not taking the risks she needs them to in order to move her business forward. "Everyone is looking for books or catalogues. You just have to say 'Camelot,' for instance, and it conjures up a whole set of images. Established brands are the easy option, which means establishing a brand is the hard thing."

That work is spawning new creativity and taking Shaftesbury into new areas. Most notably at Mipcom earlier this month, the company unveiled its first narrative-driven app, creating what Jennings believes will be a "wholly new strand" for developing video content. "We're launching 10 seven-minute 'appisodes' in a brand new franchise called Totally Amp'd," she says. "This does not exist in the space right now. It's a combination of narrative storytelling and gaming, and will be pushed out through iTunes."

The project is aimed at the tween girl market and features original music that the company hopes may also help it to break out. Shaftesbury flew 10 social media influencers over to the set on the final day of filming and will launch it with as much hullabaloo as possible mid-December.

"There is really nothing in the app world for this demo beyond nail painting, and teenage girls are over that," says Jennings. "Girls like stories, and in each of these appisodes, which will publish once a week on iTunes in Canada, there will be a cliffhanger ending and a call to action. Rolling the project out internationally will take a number of different forms. We will be having conversations with broadcasters who may need original content for their websites, and we'll also be talking to online platforms. If the series makes enough noise we'll then consider taking it to broadcast. It's completely reversing the order in which we think about the creative and commercial process."

Shaftesbury is fortunate in the fact that Canada is investing in digital content creation through its creative funding schemes (which are paying for Totally Amp'd), but Jennings believes the model sets the agenda for a lot more development in future. "Anything that is narrative-driven is about falling in love with the characters," she says. "So if we can get an audience to do this through apps, there are a million ways to create partnerships around it and distribute it.

"Our strategy is to come to this market with a groundbreaking new way to develop programming. The bulk of our business remains selling television, but if we can get this off the ground - and use the experience to create a new way of working - then we're getting the message across that we are a creative company to be in business with."

David Jenkinson
26 Oct 2011
© C21 Media 2011

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Spike TV has tapped social TV app-maker Loyalize to power a live feedback loop for the Wednesday finale of Deadliest Warrior (airs 9:00 EST). The show will allow contestants to answer polls in real time, the results of which will appear instantly on screen, and an animated graphic will update to affect voting dynamically throughout the show. The audience’s interactions with the show’s hosts will alter the show’s outcome. “We’re closing a loop between the show and the audience in real time,” said Jon Slusser, SVP of Spike Digital Entertainment. In some ways, the inmates will be running the asylum.

Deadliest Warrior is one of Spike TV’s most popular shows,

About the Author

Erin Griffith is a staff writer for Adweek. Follow Erin Griffith at @griffitherin.

@griffitherin

The Union Hall house ipod broke, which means everyone here is about to learn just how lowbrow my taste in music goes. #liltroy #warrenzevon

@DeadliestWarior

Tonight's matchups: Yakuza vs. Mafia at 9pm EST. And don't miss the new episode at 10pm EST, Green Beret vs. Spetznas.

with around one million viewers each week. The show features a battle between two historical or modern warriors, with the hosts analyzing their weapons. About 800,000 of its loyal viewers are fans on Facebook, and there’s a video game and rumors of a movie. “It’s a true franchise,” said Slusser.

For its third season finale, Deadliest Warrior’s hosts will pose questions to the audience about different aspects of the fight. Rather than a “text your answer once and we’ll show the results after a commercial” type of poll, viewers can answer polls on a Loyalize-powered white label app or Web browser, optimized for mobile and tablet viewing. The results appear on-screen in real time; the hosts of the live show will react to the answers and mold their conversation around them. “We’re not just using social to promote the show, but bringing it in to the development of the show from the start,” Slusser said. Spike TV chose Loyalize to power its platform because of its instant results, he said. Other competitors’ products had a lag time before results could be displayed.

The fact that the show is live perhaps affects rewatchability, but Loyalize CEO Todd Greene said even those who don’t participate in the voting will benefit from the polling because they’ll be able to witness reactions that correlate directly to what’s happening on-screen. “It’s a video game approach that’s almost like watching a race,” he said.

It’s Loyalize’s first live event-focused project of this nature. Alongside the company’s official launch in April, it announced the Loyalize platform would host Motorola’s SocialTV Companion Service, a second screen TV-focused app. The company has raised $6 million in funding from its founders and angel investors, including Shahar Smirin, former CEO of Comverse Inc.

 

Rick Liebling is director of digital strategy at Coyne PR where he helps clients utilize social media channels to engage relevant audiences. You can follow him on Twitter @Rick_Now and read his blog at here.

As social media matures, new opportunities are arising for content producers. Social TV, for instance, has exploded in 2011. While terms like “cross-media” and “transmedia” have only started to become part of the media lexicon, technology advances are creating new opportunities for content creators and audiences to engage with one another – an experience I call “intermedia.”

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The Growth of Social TV and the Dawn of Intermedia

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Increasingly, social TV has viewers using platforms like Twitter to comment on and discuss their favorite shows. HBO’s True Blood, Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club and Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants, or landmark events such as presidential debates generate thousands of comments, and in some cases, hundreds of thousands. As social TV gains momentum, savvy networks like Bravo, MTV and The CW are poised to take advantage by engaging their audiences in new and compelling ways.

Then intermedia was born, the offspring of social TV and transmedia. Social TV provides a space for audience members to discuss a show, while transmedia encourages content producers to create stories that move across platforms. Therefore, intermedia means that audience members and content producers engage each other between media channels, often with content from one platform affecting content from the other.

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Why You Need an Intermedia Strategy

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While content producers are currently leading the way, brands will surely follow along the intermedia path, hungry for new, relevant ways to reach consumers. In the months to come, companies and their agencies will be looking to build intermedia strategies.

Overall, intermedia leverages several trends:

• Viewers are looking for more meaningful interaction with the shows they watch.
• Stars/celebrities are taking an active role in social media.
• Content producers are trying to engage viewers in new ways.
• A burgeoning group of social platforms are catering to various entertainment interests.

Read on to discover the components of an intermedia strategy plan.

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1. What Does Success Look Like?

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Before you embark, have a measurement of success for your program. Think about how you’ll measure the growth of the online community as well as show viewership. Look at quantitative metrics such as followers or retweets, but also observe more qualitative engagement like conversation sentiment. You may also be looking at other factors such as an increase in traffic to online or offline retail outlets for ancillary products such as merchandise or DVDs. Use intermedia as a tool to see what elements of a program are resonating most with the audience.

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2. What Are Your Assets?

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Do you have access to talent? Will that talent engage viewers as themselves or as their characters? What online owned media channels can you leverage? Does the show already have a Twitter account? Finally, archival footage, brand partners and physical venues can also become weapons in your intermedia arsenal.

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3. What Sort of Intermedia Content Will You Develop?

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While certain properties have an existing base of passionate fans (think Mad Men), new shows (like 2 Broke Girls) attempt to establish a strong initial relationship with their audiences. Understanding your audience will help determine the type of content you can create, whether by providing character back story or offering exclusive access to table readings from the actors. Ultimately you’ll be asking yourself: Am I trying to build deeper ties with those who already know my content, or am I trying to introduce myself to new, potential fans?

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4. What Platforms Should You Use?

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While Twitter is the obvious choice for intermedia engagement, it’s certainly not the only one. Sarah Hill, interactive anchor/reporter for KOMU-TV in Missouri uses live Google+ Hangouts during her broadcast. Turntable.fm, Skype and YouTube can all be leveraged similarly.

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5. When Will This Happen?

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Intermedia can be planned for a variety of experiences and settings, including music venues, sports stadiums and fashion shows. Producers can also use intermedia to reinvigorate classic programming; for instance, G4 aired Star Trek 2.0 in 2006.

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Recent Examples

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Companies like Social Guide and TV Dinner are making social TV engagement easier by developing mobile apps and engagement platforms respectively. Others such as Bluefin Labs show the value of social TV interaction through rigorous measurement.

For their season finale, Spike TV’s Deadliest Warrior integrated live segments of the show’s hosts, who answered tweeted questions and commented on real-time poll results taken from the show’s website. This dynamic approach helped land the show a Top 10 “Social TV” spot on SocialGuide.com for the night, edging out CBS social TV juggernaut Survivor.

ESPN is taking a more ambitious intermedia strategy with its NFL32 programming. The show airs Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. ET on ESPN2, during which ESPN football analysts and insiders take questions from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. An #NFL32 hashtag keeps the conversation flowing alongside the @NFL32 account.

As you can see, creating an intermedia program requires more aggressive tactics than a simple hashtag or a few Facebook video posts. Planning and maximizing assets using an intermedia strategy can drive real results.

Turning the TV Set into a Touch Screen - with junaio

Munich, Germany and San Francisco, California, January 26, 2011 - Yesterday was a historic day for television. For the first time ever, viewers could actively participate in a live television show and react to things shown on the TV screen by simply using a smartphone and the Augmented Reality browser junaio. The occasion was a live quiz of the popular German science show ProSieben "Galileo" and it was just like having a TV set with a touch screen. Pointing the phone's camera at the displayed choice of answers and clicking on one of the options was all that was needed to get instant feedback on whether the viewer's choice was right and how well he was doing compared to others. This interesting breakthrough technology could open up many new opportunities for news networks and popular shows like "American Idol".

The idea of interactive television with viewers being able to cast their vote in real time, to transmit their opinion or to participate in a quiz show has been around for decades. To date though, popular entertainment shows were only able to offer a very limited form of viewer participation by having viewers send text messages or using batteries of call centers. Now, for the first time everybody was able to actively participate in a bi-directional communication, provided he had a smartphone available, and junaio, which can be downloaded for free at the Apple iPhone App Store or the Android Marketplace.

Different from any normal feedback app, the AR image recognition assures that only those actually seeing the show can participate. It is not hard to imagine the different opportunities this technology opens up. The trick during the "Galileo" quiz was to point the smartphone camera directly at the choice of alternative responses displayed on the TV screen. junaio uses a technology called digital image recognition. The scanned screen image triggers communication with the station's server via Internet and thus establishes a bi-directional transmission of information. With just a click on the touch screen of the smartphone the viewer's response is transmitted. Results are displayed instantly, both at the station's end and on the smartphone. The viewer then sees immediately whether his answer was right or wrong, which percentage of viewers answered correctly and how many questions he has gotten right himself so far.

The public showed great interest in this technology. The number of junaio downloads was staggering, and for ProSieben "Galileo", who advertised the show well in advance, it was a huge success. "Galileo" was number one in German twitter trends and ratings shot up to 14% in market share among 14 to 49 year old viewers. ProSieben is committed to continue integrating such Augmented Reality services in future shows. Yesterday's experiment can be considered a first important step towards truly interactive television, offering a simple and elegant solution to instant user feedback and messaging without requiring any special and complicated equipment.

"Viewer polling is one thing", says Peter Meier, CTO of metaio, the developers of junaio. "Another idea could be to offer films or documentaries based on the audience's spontaneous choice. Or to make additional information available, such as a chef's recipe, and transmit it at a viewer's request directly onto his smartphone. News networks can take an instant temperature check of viewer attitudes. Someone on Twitter already suggested using this for the popular show 'American Idol'. Breakthrough technologies such as junaio will provide the media industry with entirely new possibilities of user interaction."

American consumers are increasingly connected and our recent survey shows they are increasingly multitasking when it comes to multimedia.

Roughly 40 percent of tablet and smartphone owners in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching TV, while only 14 percent of eReader owners said they watched TV while using their device every day.

And what are smartphone and tablet owners doing while watching TV? Checking email. Email was the top activity for both men and women during television programming and commercial breaks. In addition, women reported engaging in social networking more than men, while men checked sports scores more often.Advertisers should take note that while viewers may be splitting attention between two (or three!) screens, 19 percent of smartphone and tablet owners searched for product information and 13 percent searched for coupons or deals while the television was on.