Television is getting interactive

Pankaj Thakkar

BANGALORE, INDIA: The advent of reality shows such as Indian Idol, Big Boss, Kaun Banega Crorepati, etc, is slowly converting passive TV viewers into highly participative audiences. In the last few years, participative TV has seen the upward growth trend with innovative technologies being deployed by broadcasters. The growth in mobile technology and its acceptance in India has also been an important harbinger in this adoption.

The Marriage of Convenience

The marriage of network services and TV programming is one of the latest success stories of the convergence of the mobile phone and TV. This convergence has come about by connecting, communicating, interacting and ultimately charging viewers across multiple, complementary technology and billing platforms. From being viewed simply as successful 'value adding' communication channels to existing TV properties, voice, mobile and Internet now create their own value and are fast becoming the major focus around which original programming concepts are designed and developed.

Much of the excitement surrounding the application of billable network functionality (such as SMS/MMS/IVR on premium rates) centers on the direct revenue possibilities created for content owners, broadcasters, distributors, solutions providers and network operators. While healthy direct revenues are being generated for multiple parties, these concepts also deliver significant value added propositions above and beyond this, including enhancing viewer loyalty and increasing audience levels, developing new advertising and promotional channels, and direct communications and customer profiling technique.

Also read: What's happening with 3D TVs

A Case of Collaboration

Today, technology can connect the TV screen to viewers via mobile phones. Both cell phones and TVs are becoming more advanced and including extra

layers of information for end users. TV stations and mobile operators are searching for methods to increase their revenues. TV producers are also looking at finding new ways to increase interaction with viewers and add an extra element of stickiness.

Mobile phones have offered several improvements to traditional interactive forms, such as interactive voice response (IVR) and mail. SMS/MMS has made

sending instant messages in real-time to TV shows possible. They are simply digital messages, which can immediately be processed, responded to or put on screen. Viewers often have their cell phones handy when watching TV, making it more convenient than using the fixed phone, which is often in another room. Participation TV boasts market penetrations as high as 50% (even higher among eighteen to twenty-five year olds). Thus, in addition to offering networks a new revenue source, especially during the advertising slump of 2009, 'participation TV' also provided a tool for networks to create a deeper and more direct relationship with their audiences.

TV broadcasters must leverage the value of their content over mobile, rather than using text messaging as simply a feedback mechanism and a channel to sell electronic personalization. With 'participation TV', viewers can instantly transmit their opinions and desires to the producers of live shows, see their opinions count, influence the outcome, and even support their favorite programs by ordering fan merchandise.

Tapping the Potential

The number of TV owning homes has come a long way, 100 mn TV households have been accounted for so far. The cable operators have done a good job by building up a cable and satellite penetration of 90 mn homes all over India. Most viewers in future will, however, be watching their TV mainly via cable, terrestrial and direct to home TV delivered via satellite.

The Indian telecommunications market is currently enjoying a very high growth, particularly in the mobile sector. However, competition is high and a number of smaller players are under pressure. These services have helped to increase India's teledensity. Consolidation amongst the mobile players is already underway and it is expected that only four or five large players will survive. There are currently over 500 mn mobile subscribers and this number is expected to reach around 1 bn by 2015.

Lucrative Offers

The numbers show that viewers who are 'participating' in a show will stay on the channel for a much longer period of time, often twice as long, than the

average viewer. This should be a cause for cheer for the TV industry, which has shot itself in the foot through a never-ending game of fragmentation.

Naturally advertisers, who are in a panic over the demise of TV as a cost-efficient, one-size-fits-all medium, have taken note.

Advertisers have only dipped their toes into the creative pool of what can be accomplished on two-screen interfaces. The creative minds in the ad world have not really taken advantage of the kind of space and connection they have with the audience and there's a lot more that can be done from a creative standpoint by the agency or client, if they really applied their most creative resources. Nonetheless, advertisers are beginning to embrace two-screen as a viable option for time being. Since it only requires a basic TV and a cell phone with SMS/IVR capability, two-screen has potential for a much greater reach than any one-screen deployment.

There are plenty of reasons why advertisers should be falling in love with two-screen. It has strong branding value. When one creates an advertising message that is interactive, it grabs viewers and the message has a higher likelihood of being remembered. Not only is it effective for branding, it also yields results for direct marketing. There are data mining capabilities when one connects with the viewer. It gives one the ability to collect demographic information, purchasing habits and intent, and can be aggregated in a timely fashion that's extremely valuable to a lot of advertisers and obviously advertisers want to affiliate themselves with something that people enjoy.

{#PageBreak#}

TV Viewer as Participant

It is fascinating to see how compelling it is for viewers to send a message while watching a TV show. About 500 mn already have a phone, which is a fast and hefty adoption rate in this era of severely fragmented media.

Plans are in place to extend the interactivity to wireless devices so you can take the quizzes over your cell phone, providing even more reach. Although usage of cell phones as a text channel has been slow in India compared to Europe and Japan (where people read their phones more than they listen to them) it's interesting to watch how TV is driving this new wireless consumer behavior. Ratings clinchers like debates and talk shows will soon have interactive components that are conducted over cell phones. TV programming has quickly become a call-to-action that influences online behavior, which explains why many of all primetime ads contain a URL at the end.

The same is true for cell phones when one looks at cell phone penetration and the number of cell phones available in a living room while watching TV.

Also, research shows that the typical reaction to a question asked by the anchor of a TV show was that everyone asked the others in the room watching the show, what the answer was and then each one hurriedly calls in to the show or SMS the answer to the number on the show. Almost everyone under the age thirty-five did the same and only few elders, who actually knew the answers, behaved differently by loudly announcing the answers. TV programming has quickly become a call-to-action that influences behavior.

In today's multi-tasking society, having a cell phone and a PC while watching TV is as natural as having a cell phone while driving a car. Research says that over half of India's adults have access to TV and cell phones in the same room, and 15% of them report using the cell phone to answer in the shows they are simultaneously watching. That number will only grow as more people get cell phones.

These dual screen situations are already occurring on a daily basis, and are proving to be a win-win situation for the networks, advertisers, and most importantly, the viewers by enabling their 'participation'.

(The author is CEO of Cellcast)