British broadcaster BBC is spearheading the push into multi-screen entertainment taking shape around the world with a raft of projects to soothe viewers' red-hot itch for more on-demand services. The aim is to give viewers access not only to the BBC's current programmes but also to its rich vein of archives.
"Our audience increasingly want and expect to dictate how, when, and where they get our services," BBC technology and new media director Ashley Highfield said Wednesday to a packed house at the world's largest broadcasting and audiovisual trade show, MIPTV/MILIA.
In response to viewers' expectations, Highfield said the BBC was starting to deliver content in a "hybrid environment," combining digital television, radio, the Internet, cable converter boxes and personal video recorders to offer interactive services.
The broadcaster plans to make available its vast treasure-trove of over one million hours of video, audio and supporting programme notes and scripts on its website. The goal, BBC said, is to bridge the gap between traditional television and the mushrooming digital world and give audiences a richer entertainment environment.
The arrival of on-demand services, which has revolutionised the way many use television, has been one of the main issues dominating this year's MIPTV/MILIA trade show, set to wrap up on Friday.
While the trend is turning traditional broadcasting on its head by pushing entertainment into new arenas, most industry movers and shakers here this week feel this far-reaching development will largely be positive for them, and for their audiences.
"If broadcasters don't seize this day then audiences will themselves," stated BBC top executive Jana Bennett, who shared the stage with Highfield. Content is, more than ever before, the key to capturing and securing new audiences as well as to satisfying loyal viewers, the MIPTV/MILIA crowd were repeatedly told. It also appears increasingly clear that audiences want to be able to download quality content to watch where and when they choose.
While people post a mind-boggling variety of mostly poor quality videos onto video-sharing sites like YouTube, the content they download themselves tends to be made by professionals, Jason Hirschhorn, the president of Sling Entertainment, pointed out.
His view was echoed by the increasing number of media groups and telecom companies busy launching secure IPTV channels across Europe. They claim that by offering television over the Internet they can deliver a superior viewing experience in a safe "walled garden" that gives audiences high definition picture quality along with features like built-in video-on-demand, two-way interactivity and e-commerce capabilities.
That is not the case for the brand new peer-to-peer, or Internet television platforms, such as Joost and Babelgum, which are open to anyone and which many fear will do to television what online music file sharing services like KaZaa did to the music world.
Silvio Scaglia, founder of Internet television start-up Babelgum, however, insisted the new services were not a threat, but rather a compliment, to traditional broadcasters. "We are carefully building something that is different to serve a global audience," by exploiting the transitions between technologies, he said in a debate on the future of on-demand television and multi-platform content distribution.