• by Mitch Oscar , Op-Ed Contributor, January 5, 2010

I imagine my year end chatter was similar to many a media industrialist - particularly those inquisitive and attentive - to the deployment of interactive TV apps, addressability, video on demand stickiness, broadband video and traditional TV content intermingling on large connective devices, commercialization of said off-spring, and measurement of its progeny. In parlance: TV everywhere everywhere, ubiquitously devoured, precisely measured, commercialized and authenticatedly subsidized through multiple revenue streams.

The evidence suggests that we are moving, though glacially, in that direction.

Advanced TV advertising solutionist BlackArrow has deployed its dynamic ad insertion applications for video on demand content in Comcast's Jacksonville market; interactive guider Rovi, nee Macrovision, nee TV Guide, has deployed its enhanced telescoping capability from program guide to rich media video on demand microsite in some smaller markets; video addressable trials have expanded from a single market test in Comcast's Huntsville with Open TV  (many months ago), to Cablevision's footprint utilizing VisibleWorld technology, and Invidi's addressable solution migration to Comcast's Baltimore environ; Time Warner melded a request for interaction application to the derriere of its video on demand content; rumors persist of dynamic ad insertion technology incorporation into the TiVo universe; Google TV and Navic's Admira continue to press ad auctioning and program centric TV buying optimization while Simulmedia perfects its audience delivery algorithms; interactive TV campaign management application developers, Alcatel Lucent and Ensequence, are rumored to be making further inroads with content providers, distributors and ad agencies; and Canoe Ventures continues to coast promisingly.

Researchers in motion continue their motility: TNS's DirecTView has made accessible a national representative panel through its 100,000 respondents; Rentrak has forged its essentials into local markets, expanded its relationship with satcaster Dish and AT&T' U-verse in the set top box realm as well as begun promoting the commingling of advertiser customer data with STB and other datamined info; TiVo, while maintaining its StopWatched revolving 100,000 panelist, has launched its PowerWatch supplemental opt-in 30,000 consistent onliners as well as pacted with Quantcast to explore the correlation between TV viewing and web site visitation  (10 million wide); TRA is working to solve the TV commercial exposure to purchase equation; dataminers Acxiom, Allant and Experian continue to be invited to the table to discuss integration of privacy protected data and pay TV platform foundation information; a courageous few, including comScore, Nielsen and Rentrak, are rumored to have taken up the gauntlet to traverse -where others only dream of traversing - the alignment of three video screen measurement; and three nonpartisan think tank-ish entities, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), Council for Research Excellence (CRE) and the Collaborative Alliance Set Top Box Think Tank, continue to encourage set top box and three screen measurement evolution - promise, and hopefully practicality.

If all of the aforementioned deployments in progress progressed at astronomical speeds how would the media community cope? The media brew would consist of real time commercial inventory manipulation (pricing and availability) directed locally, nationally, zoned, by household, set top box and device; interactive and addressable application extensions; targeted data overlays with privacy protective basting; single sourced measurement reportage and computations, all dynamically stirred seasoned with efficacy and reward in a dish best served cold. A lucrative culinary delight promised by This Technology. Bon appétit.