By Dean Donaldson

One way to perceive the changes in TV viewing from 1950 to the end of the 1990s, is to think of TV in 1950 as a fireplace or hearth. Families gathered around it and were mesmerized by a magic box. By the 1990s, TV had become an environment that surrounded people no matter where they were in the household and, often, outside the home. People consumed TV constantly but for different uses depending upon the time of day or location where they watched it.

Almost one fourth of people under 25 now watch most of their TV online. The authors of a new survey estimate that 800,000 U.S. households got rid of their cable subscriptions last year, and expect the number to double by the end of 2011. The loss is still small, given the 101 million subscribers nationwide, writes TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld, but cord-cutters “are a leading indicator of the shift to TV viewing on the Web.”(Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/04/the-evolution-of-tv-watching.html#ixzz1gahfvqa0.)

New technologies must also compete for space in the household. This is a more significant issue today in technology-dense households than it was in the 1950s. In my research in households, many people raise the question: where am I going to put another electronic box? Some technologies also face the challenge of whether people can understand what they do.

The PC in some homes has also become a secondary DVD player for movies, used mostly by children when the primary DVD player in the household is occupied by someone else.

Rather than replace TV, broadband PCs are increasingly likely to be in the same room as a television and to be used with a TV. There are eight different patterns of use for TVs and PCs in the same room that I have observed and many more that I probably have not yet seen. The first clue to how the two devices are used together is where each is placed in the room - side by side, on opposite walls or spaced widely apart on the same wall.

In some cases, people use a PC and television at the same time, e.g., viewing the Web site of a channel that they are currently watching on TV. Some game shows promote this as a form of interactive television. In other cases, people surf the Web during commercials or send instant messages to friends while watching TV (the instant message may be about the show they are watching or other topics). In addition, some people surf the Web and listen to TV, turning around to watch when something interesting catches their ear.

In other cases, one person uses the PC while others watch TV in the same room. The use of a PC and TV in the same room may also vary by time of day, with the broadband PC receiving more usage during the day (e.g., in a home office) and TV receiving more use during the evening. These multiple patterns of use are likely to evolve over time and may be reduced to a smaller set of uses for the two media. However, there are no signs yet that the two boxes will merge, as some have predicted.  

However, there are several important nuances to this behaviour. Many people report that they have stopped watching commercials completely, but follow-up discussion with these people indicates that they still watch some commercials, e.g., promotions for TV programming, funny 'favourite' commercials and commercials with visuals that catch their eye as they fast forward through the commercial. Indeed, it was reported that during the last Super Bowl, the most common use of the instant replay on PVRs was to watch commercials a second time.

Many EPG users report that previously they would channel surf during commercials but now they go into the Guide instead. EPG users also report less channel surfing generally. They now find channels to watch from the Guide rather than by channel surfing.

Expectations about ITV are another important issue, especially when Web-related or actual Web screens are offered as part of an ITV service. When screen design or wording in an ITV menu give people a 'feeling' that it is like the Web, viewer expectations are raised. Some want everything that is on the Web, only in an interactive video format. Service providers have tried to control expectations with a "walled garden" approach that provides a limited range of services but and maintains quality within that range of services.

Internet TV, IPTV, ways broadcasters can leverage their video for online audiences for greater market reach.

Advertisers reaching global audiences on a wider selection of platforms

Internet television allows the users to choose the content or the television show they want to watch from an archive of content or from a channel directory. The two forms of viewing Internet television are streaming the content directly to a media player or simply downloading the media to the user's computer. With the "TV on Demand" market growing, these on-demand websites or applications are essential for major television broadcasters. For example, the BBC iPlayer brings in users which stream more than one million videos per week, with one of the BBC's headline shows The Apprentice taking over three percent to five percent of the UK's internet traffic due to people watching the first episode on the BBC iPlayer. Availability of online TV content continues to grow. As an example, in Canada as of May 2011 there were more than 600 TV shows available for free streaming, including several major titles like Survivor and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (see more). 

Every night the use of on-demand television peaks at around 10 pm. Most providers of the service provide several different formats and quality controls so that the service can be viewed on many different devices. Some services now offer a HD service along side their SD, streaming is the same but offers the quality of HD to the device being used, as long as it is using a HD screen. During Peak times the BBC iPlayer transmits 12 GB (gigabytes) of information per second. Over the course of a month the iPlayer sends 7 PB (petabytes) of information.

Controlling content on the Internet presents a challenge for most providers; to try to ensure that a user is allowed to view content such as content with age certificates, providers use methods such as parental controls that allows restrictions to be placed upon the use and access of certificated material. The BBC iPlayer makes use of a parental control system giving parents the option to "lock" content, meaning that a password would have to be used to access it. Flagging systems can be used to warn a user that content may be certified or that it is intended for viewing post-watershed. Honour systems are also used where users are asked for their dates of birth or age to verify if they are able to view certain content.

An archive is a collection of information and media much like a library or interactive-storage facility. It is a necessity for an on-demand media service to maintain archives so that users can watch content that has already been aired on standard-broadcast television. However, these archives can vary from a few weeks to months to years, depending on the curator and the type of content.

For example, the BBC iPlayer's shows are in general available for up to seven days after their original broadcast. This so called "seven-day catch-up" model seems to become an industry standard for internet-television services in many countries around the world (see note). However, some shows may only be available for shorter periods. Others, such as the BBC's Panorama, may be available for an extended period because of the shows documentary nature or its popularity.

In contrast, 4oD channel 4's on-demand service offers many of its television shows that were originally aired years ago. An example of this is the comedy The IT Crowd where users can view the full series on the internet player. The same is true for other hit channel 4 comedies such as The Inbetweeners and Black Books.

Having an extensive archive, however, can bring problems along with benefits. Large archives are expensive to maintain, server farms and mass storage is needed along with ample bandwidth to transmit it all. Vast archives can be hard to catalogue and sort so that it is accessible to users.

The benefits in most cases outweigh these problems. This is because large archives bring in far more users who, in turn, watch more media, leading to a wider audience base and more advertising revenue. Large archives will also mean the user will spend more time on that website rather than competitors, leading to starvation of demand for the competitors.

Broadcasting rights vary from country to country and even within provinces of countries. These rights govern the distribution of copyrighted content and media and allow the sole distribution of that content at any one time.

An example of content only being aired in certain countries is BBC iPlayer. The BBC checks a user's IP address to make sure that only users located in the UK can stream content from the BBC. The BBC only allows free use of their product for users within the UK as those users have paid for a television license that funds part of the BBC. This IP address check is not foolproof as the user may be accessing the BBC website through a VPN.

Broadcasting rights can also be restricted to allowing a broadcaster rights to distribute that content for a limited time. Channel 4's online service 4oD can only stream shows created in the US by companies such as HBO for thirty days after they are aired on one of the Channel 4 group channels. This is to boost DVD sales for the companies who produce that media.

Some companies pay very large amounts for broadcasting rights with sports and US sitcoms usually fetching the highest price from UK-based broadcasters.

About the author

Dean Donaldson is Global Director of Media Innovation at MediaMind advertising technology solutions where he is responsible for their global evangelism. He is passionate about how creative technology can be used to deliver brand messages to the consumer at their point of engagement and then allow them to choose how and when they want to proceed. With a creative background and futurist outlook, Dean is a recognised expert at navigating through the maze of emerging media and serves on many industry councils. His research has recently obtained him a Masters with Merit from the UK's leading media innovation centre based at Bournemouth University.

About the company

MediaMind, a division of DG (NASDAQ:DGIT), is a leading global provider of digital advertising campaign management solutions to advertising agencies and advertisers. MediaMind provides media and creative agencies, advertisers and publishers with an integrated platform to manage campaigns across digital media channels and a variety of formats, including rich media, in-stream video, display and search. During 2010 MediaMind delivered campaigns for approximately 9,000 brand advertisers, servicing approximately 3,800 media and creative agencies across approximately 8,200 global web publishers in 64 countries.

http://www.mediamind.com/