Tag: TV

The Battle for the Second Screen

November 2, 2012

Matt McNally, November 2012

In our blog post a couple of weeks ago discussing some of the findings which have come out of the second wave of our Future Media Research Programme (FMRP), we argued that when it comes to remote control functionality on a second screen device, providers have to get the basics right first and then work up to incorporating more of the funky, new-world stuff such as personalisation and integration with other second screen apps. What we didn’t touch on too much was who these providers would be – who is best placed to give me my remote control app? And then who is best placed to give me my interactive second screen apps? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, who is best placed to give me an aggregated and integrated second screen experience?

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We’re Crawling Not Leaping into the 3rd Dimension

March 1, 2011

By Lloyd Mason – March 2011

Few innovations in TVs history have caused as much divisiveness as 3D. Currently the darling of consumer electronics, manufacturers and retailers far and wide are actively demonstrating this revolutionary new form of TV. However consumers don’t seem to be buying it; either the idea or the technology itself.

So what explains the public’s apparent lack of affection for 3D?  According to What Hi-Fi? magazine, 135,000 3D screens were sold in 2010, the first year the technology has really been available to British consumers. This seems respectable until you consider that nearly 10m TVs were sold in total and set sales were bumper last year due to the boost of the football World Cup in South Africa, always a driving point for sales of new sets. 3D sets totalled 1.35% of sales.

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Digital Is Dead – Long Live TV and The Web!

July 2, 2009

Nigel Walley –  July 2009

I received a flyer in the post from the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) the other day, outlining the curriculum of their ‘Complete Digital Marketing Course’.  What was remarkable about this flyer and its grandiose claim, was just how incomplete the course was.  In a week when AudiTV launched an on-demand service on Virgin cable’s Showcase, and Honda’s webTV service moved to the front page of the BT Vision EPG, there was nothing about breakthrough digital TV marketing in it at all.  With Sky launching green button advertising on the satellite platforms, there was nothing about interactive television formats; and with both Sky and Virgin developing targeted broadcast and targeted on-demand mechanisms, there was nothing about converged marketing principles, bringing together internet techniques with broadcast content.  And it wasn’t just TV that was ignored.

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Overhead Projectors, Broadcast Channels and Other Redundant Technologies

February 25, 2009

Nigel Walley – Feb 2009

I used an overhead projector for a presentation at a conference the other day.  It was great.  You get to write on a sheet of acetate, like your teachers used to, and it shines up on the wall.  Joking aside, there was something immediate and human about presenting ideas with an overhead that is completely lost with Powerpoint.  I know that I sound like a music nut comparing vinyl to the CD, but in the rush to move into the digital age, we can sometimes throw the baby out with the bath water.   Before we got rid of overheads, someone should have stopped and questioned whether there was anything great about them that needed preserving.  In fact I think they may make a comeback

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