Learning about TV thanks to my dad

Recently, my parents subscribed to a new TV offer through IPTV. They now lack one TV channel (BeTV, Belgian version of Canal+), and especially one satiric show: Les Guignols de l’Info. My dad used to watch TV and listen to radio through airwaves for a long time, on his own in the kitchen on old B&W screens, and was enjoying this show. Now that radio waves broadcast has been stopped and that this particular channel is restricted to one broadcaster (VOO, competitor of my parents’ choice: Belgacom TV), my dad misses his favorite show…

This is in fact very interesting: IPTV introduced an extra layer to the historical TV ecosystem. TV channels used to be broadcaster through airwaves. Now, broadcast is done by Telecom players coming from Cable or Phone worlds. I updated DiCoDE accordingly here. Let’s look at the difference between these 2 layers:

• in terms of content, TV’s used to gather self productions and content from external providers and broadcast them themselves. New broadcasters often deliver a wide offer of TV channels (quantity) and try to differentiate with exclusive content/channel(s) (quality)
• Traditional GRP-based advertising is still managed by TV channels. Broadcasters try to activate new interactive and digital forms of advertising activated by the red/blue/green/yellow button
• TV channels find new ways of raising money through selling of DVD’s or merchandising. They partner with Broadcasters for generating new revenues through VOD
• Social networking possibilities are very difficult to be activated by TV channels on the TV screens. A few recent initiatives show that these possibilities are possible through a portable device. Broadcasters need to focus on raising awareness and activating interactivity (including social network functionalities) through the TV screen and this famous <put color here> button

I believe that these 2 layers (and further many other layers in the ecosystems, at ReCoDE level) will merge. Buy? Build? Partner? Die? I don’t know how this is going to happen, but I know that Telecom players have raised a lot of money and that Media companies are selling less advertising space. And remember one of the key trends of UnCoDE (that I highlighted recently in the Mobile Universe): mayorship is moving from Telecom to User Interface. So watch out Google TV and Apple TV!

Let’s conclude coming back to my dad’s story. Last week-end, I set up for him, on my old MacBook laptop I gave him a few months ago and that he didn’t really use, a direct link to the on-demand-webcast of this show, with access to archives. He now can access it as conveniently as he used to watch it on his B&W TV, just by clicking on a desktop icon. That’s what New Media and technology is about: providing services to my dad (and all other members of mass markets) in a convenient way. And soon natural (at ReCoDE level).