Tracy Swedlow, editor in chief of InteractiveTV Today, is a futurist who always seems one step ahead of the industry. That’s why, if you want to stay informed, her TV of Tomorrow
conference in New York each year is a must-attend.
Last year the conference focused on data. In 2013, it was TV Everywhere. Both of those issues are still very relevant and were part of
this year’s program. (See a short video of some of the highlights and vendors videos from the conference here.)
Swedlow also focused on "touch points in the industry that include live streaming,
programmatic, OTT… measurement, virtual reality, personalization and app-ification."
The burning issue is the “distribution of content. Can everyone keep up with all of the new
content being made available? There are so many companies trying to build a relationship with the viewers directly. So the management of that, the distribution of that, the tracking of that is really
critical.”
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We not only still face a myriad of industry stresses that continue unabated -- but, like a hydra, these stresses form many new heads.
Here are some of them:
The App-ification of Television
Many agree that the definition of TV has fully evolved from being hardware (“The TV Box”) to, as Swedlow said,
“anywhere… where you go to find content, augmented reality, virtual reality. Even digital signage — that is a form of TV… It could be a hologram standing in the middle of
space.”
Now that Apple is opening up its platform to a larger developer group, how will that impact video offerings? "How do you turn television into an application?”
posited Swedlow.
Colin Dixon, principal, nScreenMedia, started off his panel on apps by saying, “You can't be a successful network unless you have an app that delivers content to
devices. But it is hard to have a great app.” Keeping it simple and making the content easy and fast to access are important elements to a successful app.
And don’t stop there.
Martijn van Horssen, CEO, Accedo warned, “You have to monitor the quality of your stream all the time. It is a continuous process to offer the best experience. Technology advances, and you have
to advance, too.”
Measurement Challenges Continue
There is arguably no easy way for measurement to fully encompass all of the new services and distribution
points now available in the industry. According to Joan Fitzgerald, comScore’s SVP television and cross-media services, “The system we rely on to measure (TV) content has been failing
us. We are not capturing all of the impressions consumed by consumers.”
Sherry Brennan, SVP distribution, Fox Networks, noted, “What is missing is currency in non-traditional
platforms.”
“Measurement is going to be catching up all the time,” intoned Swedlow. “When they finally figure out some standardized way to add tags that can track
individual assets and everyone accepts that standard, then I think we will have a really powerful industry that can drive monetization through all these networks.
“But until then, a lot
of people in the live-streaming world are coming up with new ways to monetize what they are doing. If the companies out there trying to develop measurement and tracking technologies don’t solve
this situation, they may find that someone else will come up with a new solution.”
Changing Advertising Models
Between addressable, dynamic ad insertion (DAI)
and programmatic, there are more ways to target consumers and go beyond the traditional forms of buying media. But this is not easy.
According to Brennan, “Collectively we create issues
by licensing our content to platforms that have no advertising like Netflix. Consumers get used to viewing content without ads. And so we face a double whammy….
“We can't target
ads into linear yet but can target ads in time-shifted platforms. We may require viewers to interact with an ad before they see the content….But we need to be able to scale. We are at the end
of the beginning to do what we want to do.”
Let’s Get to “Provable ROI”
Howard Shimmel, chief research officer at Turner Broadcasting, threw
down a gauntlet to business-as-usual by saying, ”We need to measure audiences and break down the walls around dayparts. Dayparts really don't matter....
“Eventually we need to get
to a world of predictive outcome measurement. So if we know that Conan sells soda better than cars, we need to be responsive to that inventory. I need campaigns measured and integrated all the
time so I can normalize. We need ‘provable ROI’ for guaranteeing sales. I don't care about age and sex.”
2016
What will be the TVOT focus next year?
According to Swedlow, “virtual reality, emerging television and the new consumer platforms coming out.” And then she added, “As well as sticking to the same topics as this
year’s conference.” Some issues are eternal.