Here’s a quick round up of the stastics that various presenters at TV of Tomorrow mentioned:
- 57% of Americans watch TV on the internet once a month
- 78% of tweens are regularly online while watching TV
- TV viewing is at an all time high in America, despite internet predictions
- TV accounts for 99% of all video viewing in America
- Even amongst American teens, TV dominates, at 104:24 hrs during Q12009, compared with internet at 11:32hrs
- 83% of American internet video is still short form, i.e. clips
- 65% of American internet video use is in the workplace
- WalMart is reponsible for 40% of American TV sales
- 70% of Panasonic TVs will support OTT video streaming
I was asked today, why you need a dedicated recommendations engine for TV content, and the difference between TV recommendations and any general recommendations engine that you might use for e-commerce.
The simple answer is that TV content is different: the top 10 books on Amazon accounts for around 10% of daily sales, but the top 1% of channels in the UK account for 60% of all viewing and a popular show can account for up to a third of all viewing at a particular time.
This changes the statistical basis for making recommendations and we therefore need a tailored algorithm. One of the established weaknesses of collaborative filtering approaches is that they tend to overly recommend more popular items as there are simply more people who like that show, regardless of what else they like. When applied to TV content, this problem is exacerbated and leads to a tendency to always recommend the most popular shows and channels.
Of course, one of the main goals of implementing a TV recommendations engine is to drive take-up of less popular, VoD, IPTV, or pay TV channels, so it is important that the algorithm is specifically tailored to a TV environment and can take into account these differences.
You can read more about how our recommendations engine works by reading our white paper.
The dawn of IPTV supported Video On Demand (VOD) is beginning after the launch of SeeSaw.
IPTV technology inspired site, SeeSaw has finally launched after weeks of its invitation-only beta trial. The British born VOD website will initially offer 3,000 plus hours of BBC, Channel 4 and Channel Five archived programmes with additional material to be added later.
Boxee, the free online software that allows you to collate and manage what you view online, are releasing a box that will allow you to transpose what you see on the computer to the TV – without wires!
In the world of technology, everything seems inextricably linked to the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas as talk of tablet computers, 3D TV’s and video on demand (VOD) intensifies. So it comes as no surprise that this blog post should also focus on an innovation announced there.
As the jamboree of events and exhibitions drew to a close at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Sunday, everyone was heralding 3-D TV as the saviour for the recession-hit industry. Alas, what does it mean for consumers that are currently overseeing a digital switch over?
The UK is still the leading country with the highest proportion of households using digital television. An Ofcom bi-annual study reported that 88% of UK households had digital television and that viewing times were increasing.
During 2008 the average TV viewing times increased by 3.2% to 3.8 hours per day as people embraced a greater variety of channels and viewing options created by IPTV technology.
The first TV’s to offer built-in access to BBC iPlayer and YouTube channels have been launched, and they are expected to outgrow supply in the lead up to Christmas.
The iViewer, which has taken a year to develop, has been created by British firm Cello and it will only be available from Marks & Spencer’s.
This is another step towards the integration of television and video on demand (VOD) using IPTV technology, to give audiences greater control over what they watch and when.
Read more on TV’s With Integrated BBC iPlayer Hit the Market…
This December the BBC iPlayer will move from the computer screen and onto a select number of Freesat TV’s.
The decision to trial the iPlayer on Freesat demonstrates both the growing popularity of the iPlayer – recently awarded at the 2009 Royal Television Society Innovation Awards – and Freesat. According to one industry expert “this is a sign of things to come” with IPTV technology.
Read more on BBC iPlayer Moves onto Freesat Boxes for Christmas…
Today’s television viewers are faced with an unprecedented level of choice. It can often be confusing and difficult to find a show you actually want to watch. A standard EPG provides on screen access to TV listings but this doesn’t solve the problem of navigating through the hundreds of channels available. This difficulty has a significant knock on effect for many channels that face the problem of getting the viewer to notice their TV shows. This presents more of a risk to niche channels and could possibly have a negative impact on their ability to attract advertising revenue.