Category: Uncategorized

Are We Overwhelming The TV Viewer

Posted on by tvangelist

People in the UK have recently claimed in a survey there was too much choice and they are overwhelmed. The ordinary person in the street has trouble fitting a plug or changing a light-bulb and we completely over estimate the intelligence of the ‘average joe’ (as they are called in the USA) with respect to Television mechanics. Clearly we have a new generation, we advance, we learn…but do we offer anything other than the swamping of the masses with TV Everywhere? Youngsters who consume “more” today mostly on their laptops will develop different viewing habits to us oldies (like try to avoid paying like they do for music) that is sure but they eventually turn into ‘hard-working’ adults where viewing takes place from 8pm to midnight and on weekends only! – They will have families to visit, friends, play sports, go out, go on holiday, get married, have children and their lives will fill up. They will regress to tired TV watching like we all do in the main.

The very exercise that you all talk of (cord cutting, TV everywhere, Search for what you want etc). I have asked ordinary folk (i.e. non TV execs) to do – they give up searching after 15 minutes, they get tired, bored and fed-up very quickly or frustrated and then go to look for now and next (linear TV) and they are not content after a long day in the office to sit down and search for what they want when they want where they want. That is the premise nay the mantra that we live by in the TV industry today but it is far from the truth or reality. The majority of Cable in Europe is still heavily analogue. Satellite cannot go OTT readily. Even AppleTV functions well but requires effort to find something even if it is simple to use, it requires conscious effort. The PVR gives huge additional viewing. OTT costs money in time, equipment and will eventually in subscription fees all round. We are a long way from the final landscape of TV it is becoming very much overwhelming what we can do with the same set of TV programmes that are in the main repeats (back-catalogue). Linear TV still makes it easy for the viewer, taking the strain out of selecting something to clear the mind, entertain after a long day in the office or playing with the kids in the park. We are even overwhelmed by the amount of news there is about new TV technologies…I wish to be here in 50 years to see what it turns into…I wont!

Social Media – Opening Pandoras box if you allow the Ordinary Public a voice.

Posted on by tvangelist

It is time to discuss the reality of Social Media which I believe is very misunderstood by many Companies. Here is an example The Company behind Strepsils & Lemsip want you to follow them on Facebook! – In order for them to get you to do that they have to advertise on Broadcast Linear TV (Quite expensive)!   So all those brands that try to drive you to individualising your Brand preferences (Rollerball, News Channels etc) have merely increased their OPEX in order to do so.  To gain what? Followers and Fans of medicine, a writing instrument, yesterdays stories?

Broadcast TV blasts a 30 second Ad into the subconscious (whether you “like” it or not, in order to plant a seed…”buy my brand”.   On the other hand a call to action like “visit” a Facebook or Web page needs a conscious effort from an individual … and quite frankly you have to be pretty strange if you want to be a fan of cough or flu medicine.  On a daily basis I am being asked to go to a Facebook page fro something.  I have my own promoting a book and it gets NO VISITORS, not because the book is not interesting but because it is a pain in the ass to actually go out of your way to be a Fan of something.  Initially novel but the amount of time needed to do all this “following” makes it a full time job!  I have blogged 3 articles this morning and its been 3 hours of work!

Therefore certain Brands relying on Social Media will just wither and die from lack of interest.   Yes I say it again there are just too many Brands for people to follow on a personal basis this day and age.  We are swamped with Companies asking us to go to their Website, Social Media Sites, Newsletters etc. We Will have our favourites for sure but out shopping we fall upon Brands that spark an impulse buy because the Brands have been bombarding us via TV & Print media…

Social Media is not all bad!  I am actually a fan of Twitter as it can be (if understood) well used to succintly tailor a tease message. It can surprise and delight with stories that you may never have fallen upon due to the clever use of the enticement in the small amount of words.  However the results of some Twitter experiences leave a lot to be desired.  The Twitter Feed during the Eurovision song contest (a much maligned competition but loved by billions) highlighted that if you give the common person a voice you might not enjoy what you get. The result of the 2011 Eurovision Twitter Feed was a purile, bigoted, unhealthy diatribe that added nothing to the event. It merely brought out the worst in the simpletons who used it to pour out unfettered racist comments.

Facebook can be as dangerous:  I bought a Print Server from DLink it didnt work as it said it would on the box. I tried for several long hours to make it work.  No joy!  So I thought lets see how good their Social Media game is!  I took the Facebook route to get straight to the Company.  The entire list of comments were about how bad, dificult and rubbish their products are.   There for all to see!  Happy customers dont really want to be fans or comment and adore the DLink brand because the purchases are once in a blue moon technology needs and if they work people just get on with life, the Internet and other more fun Facebook stuff with actual friends.  What was interesting was the Social Media Monitoring Manager (more OPEX) wrote to me and asked if I had contacted tech support!!!  If a brand new product – ‘PlugnPlay’ – needs Instant Tech Support then something is wrong.   I suggested they buy it back from me, especially  if they are confident enough about their products and their Brand…no answer!  DLink is now scratched off my list of Brands.

Its a dangerous game to follow the Facebook bandwagon. Many PR disaters ‘a la Qantas’ are going to happen because for many it is not the professional place it is thought to be!  Sure there will be lots of stories of how wonderful it can be and the control is in the hands of the public etc.  However you have to assess your place in the market, what you believe you will achieve and not just run blindly into Social Media thining it is going to be the answer to customer loyalty = more revenue = happy people.  It might just jump up and bite you on the ass!  Social Media is merely the opening of Pandoras box when you allow the public a voice.

The Never Ending Call For Digital TV Standardisation – “Young man, the ‘market’ will decide”!

Posted on by tvangelist

When is a Standard not a Standard? It would seem that it is when it is officially recognised by a Standards Body…after that it just becomes a pawn in the marketing and lobbying of Support Groups for their preferred flavour. First of all it was MHEG which was standardised and not taken up globally for DTT, then came the turn of ACAP & MHP, now its the turn of HbbTV…HTML5 is on the horizon some say Android will reign supreme!

At the recent OTT World Summit held in London where the “worlds television executives” gathered to hear the latest and greatest sales pitches from all & sundry there was yet another Standards discussion. We hear it all the time – We need a Standard! Actually what we get is – My TV system is better than your TV system, My Standard is better than your TV Standard etc. This is not grown up, nor intelligent, always arguing that we do it this way because it’s better than your way! What is at stake? All that SDOs are trying to fix the age old problem of implementing Value Added Services on top of Programming nothing more! It will not help world peace, it will not feed starving families it is just Interactive TV – STOP the fighting! Reunite the SDOs and let’s agree and get on with it so we can develop decent value added services that make a difference! And by the way they are not news portals, nor teletext with pictures thank you very much, we did that 20 years ago!!

It is a fairly tiresome business keeping up with all of this infighting that has taken place over those last 20 years or more, WHY? Because little has changed. As mentioned above the latest proponents of a World Standard for Digital TV is the HbbTV Forum. Their presentation did not have any earth shattering statements, they did not discuss how the particular “product” is made or how it matches up to other Standards – nor the miserable amount of expensive receivers that have NOT been shipped into Germany. They only managed a few stretched truths about its success, but lobbyists and supporters are are guilty of that. (Yes me too!) Despite the announcement today from Spain that it has selected this latest and greatest technology (It is not news it is lobbying) it changes nothing to the overall problem. Take-up and use of Advanced Services needs only one thing – Good and Useful Value Added Services that bring added value to the consumer. Teletext and URLs to video links will just not cut the mustard at 200 Euros a STB! Spanish TV will not flourish because of this selection. France and Germany are a gauge! Counter Lobbying haha!?

Back to the problem of people and standards! During the ensuing OTTWS Panel discussion I stated that the basic technology is still the same. There is a Presentation Engine and a Execution Engine and they either work together or they don’t depending on your chosen poison. Nothing has changed since Digital TV ever appeared. Android is the latest sexy STB & iDTV middleware that we all race to implement as is HTML5 but what are they if they are not Presentation and Execution Engines? Who owns or controls the IPR? You see where this might be heading.

So here is the solution – With Hybrid & Convergence being axiomatic for Digital TV solutions we should ultimately look at CONVERGING Standards Development Organisations and Standards Bodies as well. Do we need different groups rubber stamping a technology? Do we need SDOs all feeding off of each others work? Do we need multiple Standards? Most of all do we need to waste Company time, effort and money on following these different strains of the same thing? And more so is it right that we have disingenuous people sitting on one organisation who have influence, also sitting on the competing one, also in a position of influence, just so their Company ultimately gets their technology (IPR) into one or the other or both of the Standards! Not to mention the ‘blockers’ who attend so their Company can get about selling as much as possible of its proprietary implementation before a standard can be achieved. Because that is all that this is about in reality – Selling stuff.

Standards have become a pawn in the IPR game and the more we move along the more we go backwards to a fully disparate systems all pretending to be “the solution”. But then again why worry about any of this because as I have been told by the authorities that do have the power to change all of this – “Young man, the ‘market’ will decide”! – However from what I personally experienced at the OTTWS which is symptomatic of the Digital TV business, I may never get to see that happen!

The Death of Friends – Unstoppable Virtual Lives – A Social Media Problem?

Posted on by tvangelist

As you grow older family, friends and colleagues pass away and for all of us our time will eventually come. Today I received a ‘Social Media Website’ call-to-action in the form of an E Mail; ‘Send Allan McKinnon a Birthday Card’, because Allan’s Birthday is in 7 days! Despite time being a healer this made jump in my seat because Allan died of prostate cancer in March 2009. I have over the years received these notices including spam from Allan courtesy of FanBox – (San Diego) who I wrote to giving them a piece of my mind – pointless but fulfilling nonetheless. Unfortunately we have a WWW that is growing exponentially and we are populating it, but are we cleaning it up as we move along? Trillions upon trillions of bytes of data that is out-of-date, worthless & abandoned on hardware in storage-farms worldwide. Electricity, cooling and control required to keep useless dead data alive! I also lost some colleagues in a plane crash many years ago. I thought I would do the right thing by informing the Companies where we shared our Social and Professional details, that they were no longer with us. This was in order to stop receiving reminders about their birthdays et al like Allans today. However I did not get far as I had to prove that they were dead! My word was certainly not good enough. Why? Because people often call up and claim people are dead when they are not, in order to have profiles removed, is what I was told! I had to send a ‘Death Certificate’ as proof! This was something that I,not a member of the family, was unable to deliver! So here we are periodically or randomly reminded of the people we once loved, who are no longer with us but are alive in the ether! Interestingly we don’t get asked for a Birth certificate when we create a Social or Professional Media Account nor do we have to prove that we are alive at any time along the way. When we pass away however there are no mechanisms to clean up what we have left behind; and who the heck knows where we have created our Virtual Presence? We have a WWW that is filling with people’s personal details – creating potentially unstoppable Virtual Lives. May Allan rest in peace and continue to live in his virtual world. I wont be sending him a card though some people might! I have unexpectedly shed a tear today for a dear, dear friend (pictured) that has never actually left me despite, for me at least, these passionless reminders!

Thoughts on HbbTV – Not Mine For a Change

Posted on by tvangelist

I must attribute this to a certain Rob Galagher on LinkedIn: There is no need for CE-HTML or HbbTV in the technology stack: zero, nada, none. They are not needed or used on the desktop devices, they are not needed or used on tablet devices, they are not nedded or used on mobile phone devices. So why on TV? Here is the answer to that rhetorical question…

Both CE-HTML and HbbTV are –artificial– means for three companies LG, Sharp and Philips) attempting to stay in business by creating and then imposing a manufacturing cartel that mistakenly believes it will be able to continue to sell over-priced crippled products in an era that is disrupting the TV as a type of digital device the same way progress, engineeering, fierce competition and global markets have disrupted and changed all other types of digital devices.

In conclusion then –if– the TV manufacturers can impose artificial technology embedded in some type of proprietary patented electronic circuitry that requires the use of the artificial technology stack they will not only be able to continue to sell over-priced crippled product they will be able to charge for access to their devices the same way the cable and telephony networks have. That is what they are attempting to do with CE-HTML and HbbTV fellas.

Trusting Me Trusting You – TV Recommendations and Facebook

Posted on by tvangelist

How much do I trust recommendations regarding Film & TV that come from my friends…Good question and easily answered. Not at all – Why? Because my friends are an eclectic bunch of multinationals and they all have their particular quirks, idiosyncrasies and tastes. They dress differently, they eat different foods, they listen to different music. They are individuals. We do have some things in common like children in the same schools, a like of sports amongst some of us, fine wines and spirits, however we are not trying to be like each other. They don’t watch TV in the main because they are Architects, Artists, Dancers, Choreographers, Jewellers, Photographers, Film Producers on one side and on the other they are Founders, Restaurateurs, Secretaries, Cleaners, Electricians, Builders and Craftsmen. So whatever recommendations I get on Facebook will certainly surprise because Facebook is not necessarily their thing either. They are too busy! We have discussed this over a wine or two on a sunny terrace. We find that TV is a plonk yourself down after a hard day with a Glass-Of-Wine-Whats-On-In-The-Next-10-Minutes state of mind. We do communicate via the Internet and we watch their films, read their books and look at and even buy their art, we eat in their restaurants etc. I think amongst then we are the biggest TV enthusiasts out of all of them and I know I cannot impose any of my TV likes upon them. Thankfully there is the TV Professional at the Broadcasters who scouts for and buys new things for us to watch, otherwise TV in our house would simply fade to black.