Richard Halton, CEO of connected TV platform YouView, offers his predictions and what's to come in 2018.
In the first episode of the BBC's new high concept, globe-trotting Night Manager-esque Ruski-drama McMafia, Russian gangland boss Semiyon Kleiman asks James Norton's character Alex which global franchise he studied at business school and why. McDonalds' Alex shoots back. When he hesitates describing their formula for success, Kleiman says briskly, because everywhere Burger King built one outlet, McDonalds built two'.
I can't comment on the veracity of this as a fast food strategy, or as Semiyon advocates, the model for a Chechen based mafia outfit, but it certainly seems as if Misha Glenny wasn't just anticipating Netflix and Amazon's production values when he wrote the book the glossy new drama is based on. He also neatly described the global race for dominance their respective business strategies would represent too.
Netflix, Amazon and now Facebook and Apple as well as the veterans at Google and YouTube are in the process of rolling out their services worldwide. This poses a new question for UK broadcasters - and the friendly platforms like ours, Sky, Virgin and Freeview which support them - is this is a war they can afford to fight. And assuming they can, on what terms will victory be declared?
On the face of it, it's a race for the high ground - more and more money being ploughed into top end drama exploited on a global scale.
Good news for consumers, a field of battle well-trodden by the BBC and ITV Studios as well as the UK independent production sector and a major boost to the global creative economy. And to turn the idiom around, clearly a case of new dogs learning the old tricks.
As is becoming more and more apparent, this isn't just a fight for attention, or TV subs, or viewing share which represent the old metrics of broadcast TV. It's a campaign for the retail delivery relationship, the household data set, or as a Google Executive put it rather chillingly at a panel I was on last year, the ownership of the OS of the connected home.
Put in cold numbers, it's a war worth $4,300bn, the value ascribed recently by Accenture to the value of the global IoT market in 2024, dwarfing the mere $85bn expected to be generated by the connected home market in 2020 which broadly compares to the scale of the entire UK Creative Economy today.
In that context, does Rupert Murdoch exiting his $80bn entertainment interests look like a prescient foretelling of doom for seemingly subscale UK operators like the BBC?
And even for other worthy owners of the UK connected home like BT - particularly when you compare the combined scale of BT with Amazon - add together the market capitalization at BT with Sky and you still struggle to get to a tenth of the extraordinary $550bn represented by Jeff Bezos's Seattle operation.
In the week before CES, the global tech fest in Las Vegas, I would like to argue this is a battle that the incumbents can win, albeit on new terms. And in our way, one that YouView, as well as the other friendly platforms in the UK, can help all sides navigate as the world of media turns on its axis.
More importantly it is a war where the consumer will dictate the terms and ultimately reign supreme. To that end, here are my predictions for 2018, why I think they matter for UK media and what we at YouView expect to do to contribute:
Content everywhere. The seeds were sown for peace before Christmas. YouTube and Amazon brokered terms for access to each other's devices; BT and Sky called an end to a nearly ten year stand off for pay TV channel distribution. YouView has new players to celebrate too in 2018. What next? Netflix on Sky and Amazon on Virgin Media are the ones to watch out for. There are challenges here too - the battle for prominence will continue to rage as UK PSBs seek to protect the advantages they have in the linear world in an IP environment - friendly platforms like YouView are vital to set the standard for the rest
Virtual partnerships. The days of the branded ecosystem are over. Apple plays Spotify through Sonos. Auntie talks to YouView through Amazon Alexa. The new partnerships are virtual as consumers rightly demand proper interoperability between devices. At YouView we're looking at how our cloud services can enable content sharing across different devices - browsing PVR recording lists with a mobile app as we do today, or using PSB metadata to power contextual voice search, coming soon.
Data drives value. David Abraham powerfully described data as the new oil' of the TV industry, ironically the year before the launch of Tesla's first electric car. While the electric car may not need oil, it sure generates data. Connected platforms are the next frontier for broadcasting - better information about consumer behaviour (did you know that 13% of the viewers to the first episode of GBBO on Channel 4 hadn't seen the previous series on the BBC? YouView were able to tell Channel 4 that before the overnights were published), but also about how consumers find content. Challenges here too - the new GDPR regulation in May is good news for consumers and for the UK - there is plenty to do for the US platforms to match the new normal for privacy across the EU.
Re-invention of ad technology. Hat tip to Sky on this one, ad smart was with us in 2014, but we're going to see ad insertion in the linear broadcast stream move into the mainstream in 2018 as commercial broadcasters seek to wrest back control of delivery of commercial impacts, with household level targeting backed by real time data. YouView will trial this end to end this year and the winds of changing are blowing already - BT announced this week that Channel 4 Media are replacing Google as providers of BT Sport's online targete
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
On April 26, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik joined CNBC's Mor...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
27/04/2024
Two environmentally-focused groups are partnering to engage the unscripted TV world in finding better ways to address climate change. Reality of Change is an ec...
27/04/2024
Sarah Garcia has been promoted to weekend anchor at KTLM McAllen, Texas, known as Telemundo 40. Starting April 27, she will anchor Noticias Telemundo 40 weekend...
27/04/2024
CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League....
27/04/2024
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts received $35.4 million in compensation in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, according to a proxy statement filed by th...
27/04/2024
Art Happens Here With John Lithgow, which sees the actor study dance, ceramics, silk-screen printing and vocal jazz with students in Los Angeles, debuts on PBS ...
27/04/2024
Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?...
27/04/2024
Next up for the weekend binge at Catchy Comedy is Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Every weekend, Catchy Comedy features The Catchy Binge, a marathon of a classic sitcom....
26/04/2024
Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 kicks-off today with screenings in 5 theaters in Mexico City and the opening-night film, FRIDA, directed by Carla Guti rrez...
26/04/2024
[Editor's Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women d...
26/04/2024
Once again this year, SGL Carbon opened its doors to interested children and young people. On the occasion of the German Girls and Boys Day, which took place on...
26/04/2024
Orders1 of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x
Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%,...
26/04/2024
Five Considerations For Communications Modernization In The 21st Century
In the digital-enabled battlespace, the Joint Force needs to shoot, move and communica...
26/04/2024
CBS Sports has launched Champions League as a new, 24-hour streaming channel that will serve as the year-round destination for nonstop highlights of the UEFA ...
26/04/2024
Despite tough competition in the streaming space, Roku reported solid results in Q1 2024, beating revenue expectations, with total net revenue up 19% YoY to $88...
26/04/2024
LONDON AND TORONTO Pinewood Toronto Studios has appointed Sarah Farrell as general manager of the Studios in downtown Toronto....
26/04/2024
Quantum to Offer Advanced Filesharing Technology and Performance in StorNext and...
26/04/2024
FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2024 entries and introduces new Emerging Talen...
26/04/2024
Picture Shop Announces Chris Evans as Head of Unscripted
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
Picture Shop announced Chris Evans will lead Unscripte...
26/04/2024
Participate in a Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this survey,...
26/04/2024
Toy maker Mattel said it is working with Samsung to launch its first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels later this year....
26/04/2024
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) said it named Marty Moe as president....
26/04/2024
Ron Howard is the director on Jim Henson Idea Man, a documentary that premieres on Disney Plus May 31. Henson of course created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big...
26/04/2024
The ice continues to melt under the regional sports network business as the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League have made a long-term deal to broadcast...
26/04/2024
Heading into the upfronts, Warner Bros. Discovery said it launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertiser can use for converged, targeted advertising camp...
26/04/2024
CBS has renewed the drama The Equalizer, which will see season five on in 2024-2025. Queen Latifah stars....
26/04/2024
The CW has entered into an exclusive multiyear broadcast partnership for the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Teen USA Pageant. The 73rd Miss USA Pageant will air ...
26/04/2024
Fuse Media isn't mincing words in a campaign urging its young viewers to register and participate in the 2024 elections....
26/04/2024
Dead Boy Detectives, a series from Neil Gaiman about a detective agency staffed by ghosts, debuts on Netflix April 25. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri are in t...
26/04/2024
The Story Collective has gradually repurposed the former Mortlake Brewery to include production offices, workshops and sound stages
By Matthew Corrigan
Publi...
26/04/2024
Perkett joins the company following a 25 year career in product management, product marketing, engineering and user experience (UX) across multiple industries
...
26/04/2024
Teradek, the industry leader in wireless video transmitters and receivers, announced today the launch of new Bolt 6 LT 750 and Bolt 6 Monitor Module 750 RX with...
26/04/2024
NEW YORK Amagi has appointed Richard Perkett chief product officer (CPO)....
26/04/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has announced the results of the 2024 NAB Radio and Television Board of Directors elections. The...
26/04/2024
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. & NEW YORK Mattel has announced a deal to launch its first three 24/7 free ad supported streaming (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus, Samsung...
26/04/2024
PORTLAND, Maine Viewers here can now receive the NextGen TV signals of five local stations with the launch of ATSC 3.0 service from host station WPFO, which is ...
Richard Halton, CEO of connected TV platform YouView, offers his predictions and what's to come in 2018.
