As Facebook and YouTube feeds engulf us, the idiot box perched in one corner of the room is being silently shunted away. Smartphones and tablets are slowly taking the centre stage as the “first screens” in a home. Except for the 20-30 minutes family time spent watching our most favourite TV shows or news, the TV set has become rather a “second screen” in most of our households, especially amongst the Gen Y and Gen Z.

Digitisation decision

On the other hand, cable TV digitisation is seeing progress with the first two phases almost over while the other two phases for country-wide digitisation by 2015 well on its way. Can this digitisation perk up the idiot box?

In the broadcast mode, cable TV does not have good network effects (i.e. as the number of subscribers grow, the value also increases – only proportionately) as compared to social networks such as Facebook or even mobile networks. However, cable TV network acts as a multi-sided market that connects viewers on one side, broadcasters on another and the advertisers on the third side. These stakeholders depend on each other. For example, viewers depend on broadcasters for content, broadcasters depend on viewers for ratings, advertisers depend on viewers for eyeballs and broadcasters depend on advertisers for their revenue. Typically, the broadcasters earn 70-75 per cent of their revenue from advertisements and the rest from subscriber fees. Hence TV networks form a powerful platform that can be leveraged by all stakeholders. Digitisation along with the Set-Top-Box option provides opportunities for the network providers (the local cable operators and multi-system operators) and broadcasters to innovate new methods of monetisation over the platform, as follows.

Getting creative

The Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) available through the digital feed has not yet been fully exploited. With easy to use application interface, the EPG can provide rich features such as smart parental control, programmed video recording, apart from the typical ones such as previews and programme schedules. The STB can also act as a media hub to connect to other digital devices at home such as speakers, mobiles, and storage; connecting to the Internet and show streaming videos from video servers; and running Over-The-Top (OTT) applications such as Skype or WhatsApp to enable Internet telephony, chat and conferencing. The first generation STBs and remotes that has been thrust on us by the network operators are very clumsy to use and have only a very small subset of the above features. With vernacular language support, the STBs and EPGs will enable even viewers in suburban and rural areas to enjoy the benefits of digitisation. Operators can also provide customer friendly Music-on-Demand, and Video-on-Demand services which will make TV the first screen for the entire family.

Digital STBs with appropriate agents can enable collection of data such as the average viewing time, the channels watched, the time a viewer spends on each channel much the same way Google tracks your search patterns and YouTube tracks your viewing behaviour. This data when available to the broadcaster provides wealth of information to do analysis and even personalise the programmes through EPGs to individual viewers. This, in turn, can enable advertisers to target their ads much like in the Web through customised advertisements. With TRAI putting a ceiling of 12-minute per every hour per channel ceiling on advertisements, it is time that the broadcasters look for avenues to maximise the eyeballs instead of fighting over it in courts!

In the near future

These developments are not far away. Apple has been working on its iTV and Google on its Google TV for quite some time now. Opera, the firm that has popularised its Web browser on mobiles, has been developing a TV browser and is planning to make available TV Software Development Kit (SDKs) to enable application development. Though Smart TVs of today have built-in applications such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, they are built on a proprietary platform with poor user interfaces. However, STBs running on open platforms such as Android, Tizen or Firefox will enable development of innovative TV applications, much the same way as being witnessed in the smartphone market. These platforms also will make the STBs interoperable across networks. Today, with proprietary software and hardware, the STBs you get from one network operator often does not work on another network. The Direct-To-Home (DTH) STBs do not work over cable TV network. It is ideal that the STBs are usable across networks and the features of STB remain same and are upgradeable. STBs with the above features are of course economical compared to smart TVs and hence will appeal to viewers in suburban areas and smaller cities.

In an aggressive move, Google recently announced Chromecast, a $35 dongle that fits snugly in the HDMI port of the TV, and let contents of your computer/mobile appear magically on the TV. This innovation separates out clearly content and screen, and allows one to browse and control content on any screen!

It is time that broadcasters and network operators use the above technology advancements to turn the one-way erstwhile broadcasting TV in to a two-way interactive “first screen”, much like mobiles!

(The writers work at Sasken Communication Technologies. Views are personal. )