For an informed view on connected entertainment in the UK & Ireland, visit Cue Entertainment
When
the Olympics comes to London later this summer, the BBC-TV will provide
coverage of every sporting event – an estimated 2,500 hours of television intended for both home and
international audiences.
The
solutions that they and other international broadcasters devise will have a
profound effect on the way we watch television, as they gamble on a technology
that could mark the beginning of the end for conventional TV transmissions.
With so
many simultaneous events there simply are not enough channels to air every
sport and so the 2012 Games will be the vehicle for the most interactive,
online, digital Olympics ever offered. If all goes according to plan, broadband
streaming and catch-up services could attract a cumulative audience that is at
least the equal of broadcast programmes.
Enormous
as the BBC effort will be, many other satellite and terrestrial broadcasters
also will be at the event with their own technical and production requirements.
They too will confront the challenge to deliver comprehensive coverage to their
domestic audiences at the times and places their nations demand.
Twenty of
the 85 national media organisations represented by the European Broadcasting
Union (EBU) gather in Geneva today for a Creative Content Workshop, to share
their ideas for interactive TV coverage of the Olympics (and incidentally, the
Eurovision Song Contest). At the meeting, the German public broadcaster ARD and
the IRT research institute were to offer three “white label” applications to
members of the EBU, which they can customise to suit national needs.
Each
member broadcaster will modify the generic Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV
(HbbTV) applications to provide a uniform branded framework for broadcast and
catch-up TV, Video On Demand, interactive advertising, voting, games and social
networking. Programme-related services, such as digital text and the Electronic
Programme Guide (EPG), are also included as part of the package.
EBU
Director General Ingrid Deltenre says, “Underlying this co-operation is the
shared conviction that only high quality creative content can breathe life into
the promise of hybrid technology – and only a flexible, cross-border approach will make it happen
quickly.” The EBU claims that
the Olympiad offers an opportunity to “fast-track” HbbTV,
which the UK has passed over in favour of the much-delayed YouView project.
The EBU
lays out some guiding principles for hybrid technology, which means the
seamless combination of broadcast and broadband services. The first of these is
the need to adopt common standards. In the long-ago days when broadcasting was
confined to a country’s borders, different TV systems made little difference to
the viewer. The three colour standards (PAL, NTSC and SECAM) caused a few
headaches in the engineering departments but few consumers could spot the
difference or even name the system they watched.
It was
only when the video cassette arrived that format wars came to the living room
as viewers realised you couldn’t fit a VHS into a Betamax slot no matter how
hard you pushed. Since then, the concept of being “on the wrong side” in a
format war has been better understood although it often has slowed the uptake
of innovative new products. HbbTV is at the heart of the broadcasters’ “fight
back” against the competing attractions of connected TVs from CE manufacturers
and stand-alone boxes from Google TV, Apple TV and similar devices from Pay-TV
services.
For EBU
members, it fulfils their second principle: Broadcasters’ content should be
displayed unaltered and accessed easily by all viewers. This is of particular
concern with the advent of second screens and so-called “augmented TV”, which
broadcasters fear could lead to the dilution of their control over quality and
content.
When
designing Blu-ray Disc pop-up menus, the on-screen text can be placed so it is
matched to the entertainment content both in style and position but this is not
possible with unrelated web overlays inserted randomly over broadcast content.
Broadcasters believe this to be undesirable even if buying a pizza online takes
priority over the results of the 100m Olympic final. An integrated HbbTV
solution would give some control over the on-screen placement of such external
content.
The
threat of competing proprietary systems can also lead to added costs such as
those incurred by making BBC iPlayer content available on multiple platforms
some of which have very limited market share. Only an organisation such as the
EBU can bring together the different hybrid systems to ensure that the same
content does not have to be encoded multiple times. They seek to do this not
with restricted competition but with a maximised number of common elements, as
far as possible.
A further
principle of HbbTV services is to provide a safe environment, particularly for
younger viewers. Since the HbbTV services are broadcaster-managed, there is
consistent parental control. The wilder excesses of the open internet have no
place on the main screen in the family home and EBU members seek to ensure that
the standards for interactive and online content are appropriate to the content
being transmitted.
The final
guiding principle embraces consistent and uniform rights management and data
protection for content and consumer.
Broadcasters
taking part in the Geneva workshop are bullish about the HbbTV services
launched so far. A scant six months remain to get HbbTV right for London 2012
and if they do, the Olympics might bring hybrid services to more European
households than ever before. Audiences in the UK no doubt will be the
recipients of a superb service from the BBC but many viewers who watch
terrestrial TV will be deprived of the bells and whistles that a truly hybrid
system can bring.
The
lamentable delay in the launch of YouView means that few, if any, integrated
services will be available to the wider TV audience. Sky and Virgin Media
subscribers, however, already receive many of the benefits.
February
sees the introduction of a dedicated ITV Player section to Sky Anytime Plus to
offer access to ITV content that includes popular programmes such as “Prime
Suspect”, “Lewis” and “Cold Feet”. BBC iPlayer has long been a success with
Virgin customers and from Easter 2012, Sky Anytime Plus will offer BBC iPlayer
to more than 5 million Sky Plus HD homes at no extra charge, regardless of
their broadband supplier. This is on top of the existing 1.2 million Sky
broadband subscribers.
Following
the announcement of a partnership with the “Zeebox social TV” second screen
service, Sky in future will offer all its subscribers the integrated service
for which EBU broadcasters strive. Sky Emerging Products Director Emma Lloyd
quoted Ofcom figures to show that Britons watch TV, surf the net or use a
mobile phone on an average of seven hours each day. She said, “This equates to
a total of nine hours’ worth of media use per person because of concurrent use
on different devices. Rather than risk compromising the quality of the main TV
experience by making apps available through shared TV set, it makes sense to
provide our customers will the flexibility to engage with our content on their
own terms through personal second screens.”
The
battle lines are drawn, and by the last day of London 2012 we will know which
approach has the greatest viewer appeal. The hybrid approach of the EBU TV
broadcasters takes ownership of web content tailored for TV and displays it on
the main screen. The Sky/Zeebox partnership allows users to receive bespoke
digital content on their hand-held devices tailored to enhance the programme
they watch on TV.
Place your bets!
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