We are continuing to see progress towards the “watch anything anytime” scenario for the mass market. Here in the UK, we had the BBC and ITV announce plans for a new service that would combine Freeview and Freesat with on-demand content delivered via broadband connection. The service will be facilitated by a new set top box that will weave together broadcast, catch-up and archive content. The news of this follows on quickly from the announcement that a previously announced initiative to monetise archive content, Kangaroo, was being blocked by the regulator for being anti-competitive.

We are big believers in the viability of this type of proposition, although there are clearly many hurdles to overcome from a regulatory and technical perspective. There are many players seeking to benefit from offering on-demand services, but an initiative involving key content owners and broadcasters that would position the on-demand element as an extension of the primary TV would offer a level of coherence that some of the smaller initiatives clearly lack. Presumably the Canvas platform will also be open to other content providers (for a fee).

Although the concept of being able to watch anything, any time is appealing, there is a big gap between the perceived benefits and the reality. The BBC’s iPlayer project has been very successful and is very well done but benefits tremendously from the fact that discovery of the content on offer is linked to content that is currently being broadcast (e.g. catch up on a missed episode). When it comes to true archive content, the situation is different. Do you wait for people to browse through and find something? Do you try to programme new ‘channels’ that use broadband as a delivery mechanism? Or do you provide a search facility and hope that people will know what they are looking for?

With on-demand content, discovery is the key issue: how do you enable viewers to discover stuff that they’d be interested in watching from the vast archive of content available? Or, better yet, how do you allow content to find interested viewers?

This is a key element of what Vizimo offers to partners. Vizimo powers personalised TV with its breakthrough approach to understanding the “aboutness” of content, matching related content and profiling viewers’ content interests. This core capability enables service providers to blend broadcast and on-demand content by recommending relevant on-demand programming based on a viewer’s profile and/or a current show. Discovery of on-demand content is then driven by users’ engagement with broadcast TV. In effect, content finds the user and, critically, by being woven into the same service and guide as broadcast content, on-demand consumption becomes a sit-back, passive experience.

Anyone interested in seeing a limited version of this in operation is welcome to download our application on the iTunes App Store (see TIOTI TV+). Initial reviews are fantastic.