Every programme-maker has a desire to entertain, inform, stimulate or sometimes to shock their audience. This is both a creative challenge – “what should I create?” – and a commercial challenge – “how do I pay for it?”
On the face of it, a connected television platform such as Canvas which enables consumers to watch programmes on demand can help to address the second of these two questions. If production companies can deliver their programming to consumers outside of the broadcasters’ acquired rights windows, then there are opportunities to monetise it with advertising or even payment. At best, the traditional broadcast commissioning process “almost” funds the production of content; so on demand services could be an important source of revenue in years to come. Whilst there are many interesting questions about how this can be achieved, including whether to go direct to consumer or through an aggregator and which business model should be used, it is an obvious option to supplement that “almost” funding. Some businesses – including my company, easeltv – will make it easy to deliver and monetise content on Canvas. There are opportunities to build rich interactive services around existing content that will extend its reach and value to all.
Now, what of the creative challenge from our first question – “what should I create?” It is easy to think that you can create the same sort of programmes in the same way as before and now have a way to monetise them more effectively. There is a good incremental benefit to the industry from an enhancement to the current business model. Who wouldn’t want that?
However, this is only part of the opportunity to come from Canvas and other similar internet connected TV initiatives around the world. Whether working with a broadcaster, other aggregator or direct to consumer, content producers now have a chance to fully exploit a genuine two-way environment by delivering more choice and a more relevant experience to consumers. Here lies the opportunity to add a new dimension and breadth to your content that has not been possible before. Some producers and broadcasters already offer consumers the chance to get deeper into their favourite programmes by providing additional content on digital only TV channels, web and mobile. Let’s take this idea a little further. Let’s exploit the interactive and personalised nature of an on demand platform. With internet connected TV platforms such as Canvas you will be able to seamlessly mix broadcast and on demand content. You will be able to add interactivity using low cost web tools and finally move away from today’s horrible, proprietary and clunky interactive TV platforms – which are expensive to develop for – to deliver a high quality two-way experience.
Let’s take an example of a magazine-style programme. I’m sure you will be able to apply this thinking to your own genre and expertise. If you have a collection of stories, these might be assembled by the editorial team into (say) a half-hour programme for a broadcast channel. When you are able to individually address consumers, this half-hour programme might not be half an hour, it could happen at any time and it would almost certainly contain a different collection of stories. Some consumers may want more detail on a particular item, or may want to drill down based on teaser content. Of course some consumers will be fascinated by underwater basket weaving and others won’t be interested. So each consumer could potentially get a different programme that starts whenever they like, lasts who knows how long and contains only stuff that is relevant to them. Consumers will be able to skip the stories that don’t interest them.

The word “relevant” is very important here, and this drives to the heart of the opportunity that connected television offers. You must provide a fresh and relevant consumer experience to your audience.
The most important consideration is to retain the serendipity and simplicity of the TV. Consumer habits are slow to change and whilst, over time, people may get more used to interacting with their TV, the default viewing mode is to sit back and watch. The user experience is very different to the web on a PC. Simple choices, or no choices. Suggested content discovery, not an empty box to type in to search for content. All this requires some important capabilities to be developed:
First, the content must be intelligently sourced and produced so that it can be easily and dynamically repackaged for different audiences and markets. This is a substantial business process challenge as much as it is about editorial, creative, technology and metadata. Each story will have many elements, even on a single platform like TV, as some consumers will want a 30 second overview, some will want a focused 5 minute report and others will want interactive access to a collection of related items.
Second, the editorial and creative skills need to shift from editing a fixed duration programme to building business rules so that a relevant programme can be dynamically assembled based on whatever information is known about the consumer. In many cases, this may start out simply as market driven knowledge – for example we know that viewers in a particular geographic region are likely to be interested in a certain set of stories. What happens beyond that is of course dependent on how content is syndicated and served to individual consumers, however any strategy must aim for being able not just to deliver a personalised programme to consumers but to learn from consumers’ viewing of, and interaction with, those programmes. If a consumer consistently chooses to skip the 5 minute report on underwater basket weaving, then next time they only get the 30 second update. If they keep skipping that, then even the update is excluded unless something important happens. It is possible that social trending analysis of web activity could also be used to make initial suggestions, in order to provide some automation. The definition of these business rules becomes a core skill set for the exploitation of your content. In some ways, these rules become part of the content.
Third, in order to enable the above, you will need a new focus on the end consumer. This again is as much a business process challenge as it is about collecting data. Where content is syndicated, will you have access to consumer data? You don’t need to know every last bit of personal information about who is consuming your content, but you do need to be able to consistently identify a household or individual to provide a relevant experience. Or do you provide tools so that your syndication partners can do this on your behalf? Or do you leave all of this to your syndication partners – including the broadcasters – who will clearly want to build their own consumer relationships?
So what are we left with? There are clearly a lot of unknowns in an evolving market and some significant strategic decisions to take. Well, that may seem pretty scary!
It doesn’t need to be. It’s important to remember that we are at the very beginning of on demand television, so no one is out there doing all this now. The current proprietary pay TV platforms generally have old, clunky technology and most don’t offer anything but movies on demand. These closed platforms are hard to develop for, both commercially and technically. Connected television ultimately offers a larger audience, your choice of business model, a direct relationship with the consumer and low cost web technology and tools to develop with. In the UK, Canvas is the first real opportunity to deliver the next generation of television. The opportunity is out there and, as with most things, production companies would be well advised to keep things simple to start with. It makes sense to start with simple monetisation of existing archive material. Some basic interactivity around this content can be used to keep it fresh and relevant and, crucially, to begin learning about how households interact. As the experience builds, and results are measured, the approach can be evolved to be more ambitious. For now, it is important to consider how to participate in Canvas from day one. This TV revolution is coming to the television in your living room in time for Christmas 2010. Be there or be square-eyed.