OLED TV - Future of Television Sets

Experts predicts that OLED TV will replace plasma and LCD TV in 10 years.

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Has TV Had Its Day?

UK TV ad spend is expected to fall by 30% between 2007 and 2010 in real terms, and is closer to 19% when the changes are measured with inflation included according to a report by Enders Analysis.

By the end of this year, TV ad spend is expected to have fallen to £3.3bn, from £3.5bn last year. By 2009, TV ad spend is predicted to have fallen to £2.9bn and by 2010, to £2.8bn.Online growth and the appeal of online media, as well as the analogue to digital broadcast shift, are all structural changes cited for the decrease in TV national advertising revenue by Enders.Further structural change could follow as the funding gap between the BBC and the commercial broadcasters grows, fuelled by poor economic conditions and a gradual shift to more personalised media consumption in the digital age.

Reports rightly point to Internet advertising spend overtaking the £3.5 billion spent on ‘traditional TV’ for the first time next year; however in a sense, it is actually TV which is taking over the internet.

New formats and viewing occasions are being created where previously these options simply didn’t exist. Through the development of ITV’s online video service, 4OD and BBC’s iPlayer consumers are now devouring online video with a phenomenal appetite. Project Kangaroo is a much anticipated joint venture between ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide which will see the creation of a single site where consumers can search and enjoy content from all three broadcasters. The launch was scheduled for September 2008 but due to scrutiny from the OFT this has been delayed till later 2008, possibly early 2009. This will undoubtedly put the traditional players in a position of strength as they can combine content in one place for users to select what they watch, where they watch it and how they access it.

The scale of growth, and the ubiquity of audience, means that there are real, substantial and tangible commercial opportunities in this area, harnessing the known entertainment capacity of TV to the bespoke, dynamic, interactive functionality of the web.

2008 could well be seen as a watershed year for television as a whole, a year when the nation’s favourite form of entertainment gave definitive proof of its health in a new media landscape and demonstrated its ability to evolve and offer outstanding value for money.

BBC To "Simulcast" All Its Channels On TV And Web

The BBC, the publicly-owned UK broadcaster, has announced that all of its channels will be broadcast simultaneously on television and the internet from the end of November. The Corporation's digital-only channels – BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies and BBC News – are already "simulcast" on TV and the web, but not its two main stations, BBC One and BBC Two. However, from later this month, they will also be transmitted live over the internet, complementing the iPlayer, the organisation's video-on-demand service. Says Jana Bennett, director of broadcast and production unit BBC Vision: "The launch of BBC One and BBC Two online completes our commitment to make our portfolio of channels available to watch on the internet. "From 27 November licence fee payers will be able to watch BBC programmes, live, wherever they are in the UK on their computers, mobile phones and other portable devices."

TV & Internet Working in Unisom (US)

An internet-TV tech and service company, Backchannelmedia, is testing a system that lets television viewers use their remotes to "remember" URLs of brands. When an ad or news content appear on the screen, an icon appears that prompts viewers to "bookmark" the offer and store the link for later viewing. It is also possible to email the link — to a product's e-commerce page, for example — to themselves, directly from their remotes, users aren't relied upon to remember or write down the URL but can revisit it at their convenience.

The goal is to increase the 0.2% conversion rate among TV viewers that visit an associated website after viewing a TV commercial with a URL. If the program succeeds in boosting the rate to just 1%, that's an extra $40-$50 billion in ad revenue, Backchannelmedia estimates. As viewers can directly access the URL from an online repository, advertisers could also save money on sponsored search marketing efforts

Participating advertisers can track when a viewer clicks "OK" on his/her remote while watching a commercial. "Click-through" information is saved, so if the same consumer goes online and ultimately buys something, that purchase can be traced back to the ad.
The trial goes live at the end of November in several New England markets, In the first stage, Backchannelmedia gives participating homes set-top boxes and ties them to broadcast TV networks. The next stage will use downloaded software to make cable and satellite TV set top boxes compatible with the program.

The next stage has to be to enable viewers to either launch into the internet via their television or a better alternative would be to have split screen technology where viewers can continue watching and interact with companies making offers via TV advertising.

The Future of TV From The Well Known Experts - Microsoft!

It is very clear that the role of television is changing when people like Blair Westlake - Corporate VP, Media & Entertainment Group, Microsoft shares his views on the future of Television and its interaction with the broadband viewing experience of the internet. New players are entering this space but the question is can the traditional players adapt to take advantage of the new technology and shifting media interactions before the New Media companies invade and conquer their space.

The Future of Television - Warner Bros View

It is undeniable that audiences of TV programmes are declining and the media environment is considerably more competitive. There is increased competition from new media channels, particularly the Internet and no doubt mobile will follow. As a result the major players in traditional Television are looking to innovate and take advantage of the new media channels now available to them. Warner Bros are a good example of what many would have called a media organisation with very strong presence in television. They now are moving away from being focussed on creating programmes for television to delivering electronically transmitted content, in which television is one of many media channels that is used. The value creation is now shifting and there is an emergence outside of the television space that just links to content that is shown through multiple channels. In this presentation Bruce Rosenblum of Warner Bros talks about the future of their business and how the role of television is shifting.

How Far Through The Life Cycle Is Television?

There are many things that can be considered when looking at the future of TV in the form of innovation such as 3D capabilities or video on demand but there are other innovations involving TV that potentially have a wider reaching impact based on the functionality it offers the consumer. TiVo (see interview with Tom Rogers President & CEO) pushes the video on demand concept much further and takes away some of the issues with fixed programming and moving more towards being the google for TV content. The future is less to do with the quality of the visual experience but more the wide ranging capabilities. The future of TV may be extended through developments around Web enabling technology seen here and here.

So what is the future for TV?

There is evidence that the future of TV, if reliant on advertising revenues, is in danger. Articles by Bloomberg and the world advertising research centre indicate that TV revenues are declining. HSBC’s Chief Economist tries to suggest that media companies hold firm through the cyclical down turn in the market, but it is not that simple as the media marketplace is also going through a structural change and advertising spend was already migrating from traditional media to online.



The current economic situation is actually speeding up the need for media companies to re-align their cost bases to the future revenue opportunities based on a changing media mix, ITV is no different as Rupert Howell, ITV's managing director, brand and commercial explains in this article. Changes include current director of television Peter Fincham stepping into the new position of director of television, channels and online. ITV’s broadcast arm will form a joint unit with web properties like video-on-demand service ITV.com, social networking site Friends Reunited and Project Kangaroo, currently under development with fellow broadcasters Channel 4, Five and the BBC. ITV's online revenue from January to September rose by 6% to £25 million, with the number of unique users rising from 4.8 million to 5.9 million. The company's executive chairman, Michael Grade, argues that its web-streaming business is becoming a "channel in its own right. With content at the heart of our turnaround strategy, it now makes sense to integrate fully all our platforms to ensure the very best of our content is available to viewers wherever they wish to view it.”



According to Ad Age the US ABC and CBC networks are spending millions on research to make two arguments: Online-video ads have a bigger impact than TV ads and therefore deserve higher ad rates than TV, and that consumers don’t mind the intrusion. Their initial research from Magid Associates shows consumer recall of an unskippable ad online is 50% compared with 18% for an unskippable ad on broadcast TV. We say - Further evidence from world leading players in the commercial field that online video advertising works, and does so better than traditional TV advertising.