The Idiot Box turns Smart

Will Conditional Access System come into operation on July the 15th? Even as

the debate rages on, it is clear that the issue is only about the ‘when’.

Whenever the system becomes operative, it will mark the first step towards

integration of new technologies with plain old television. The idiot box may

finally be turning smart.

Part of the reason that there’s a debate lies in the fact that the viewing

customer has not been a part of this discussion. No one really knows the

benefits of such systems. Everyone seems to think that he will have to pay more

for the same stuff. Well, that’s not true. The first major advantage is that

there will be choice. You could watch channels that have less or no advertising.

That would be a great boon to those who are completely fed up with the

continuous and repetitive stream of advertising that interrupts today’s TV

broadcasts.

Shyam Malhotra "Everyone seems to think that he’ll have to pay more for the same stuff. That’s not true at all. The first advantage is that there will be choice, lots of it"

The truth is that ads pay for the service. The viewer enjoys the freebie...

except that the freebie has ad strings attached to it.

The advertising world is today subsidizing each viewer/reader in India to the

tune of Rs 1,000 per annum. So, if each of the 100 million-odd media consumers

were willing to pay Rs 1,000 each year, there would be no economic necessity

left for ads to shown on TV or printed in newspapers and magazines. That is not

likely to happen. In fact, the whole TV-watching experience is going to turn

interactive–which will breed completely new forms of advertising.

Interactive TV will also provide many more viewing options. For instance, the

$12.95-a-month service from TiVO records your program serials so that you can

watch them at leisure. It can also record all the games of your selected

football–sorry, should should read cricket?–team. Or movies of your favorite

star. The digital video recorder does all this and more. Or the MSN TV offerings

that help you connect your telephone line to the television so that you can chat

or e-mail or browse the Net from the couch–instead of the chair. You can also

carry on a chat with friends even as you watch a movie–very much like you

would do at a real cinema hall. The device set consists of the connector, a

remote and a wireless keyboard–and costs $99.

And these are just two examples of the new emerging world of interactive TV.

When fully realized on a mass scale, our current experience of television is

going to drastically change. A viewer will be able to get detailed information

about specific topics presented during a show, purchase goods associated with a

program, get product details for ads being carried, share knowledge and opinions

about the broadcast in real time and participate in group activities. ITV has

been around for a few years and was expected to emulate the Big Bang. Things

have been slower, but that just means that reality checks are working. Europe

seems to be taking on iTV faster than the US. In spite of higher infrastructure

costs, iTV is gaining momentum. The French market has shown significant growth

as per figures released by Canal Satellite (an interactive service provider) for

its interactive services during 2002. It has around 2 million digital

subscribers now, and has estimated that Interactive TV Services are accessed on

an average 32.4 million times per month. Ireland claims to have one digital

subscriber per five households and in the UK, digital TV penetration is said to

have exceeded 40% of the population, surpassing the Internet’s residential

penetration.

So what more does iTV do? Apart from the video on demand and the premium or

pay services mentioned earlier iTV can develop as yet another commerce channel–the

t-commerce channel. So you could order the product of choice even as you watch

its ad. And advertisements could also be tailored to your purchase patterns. If

you purchase shoes frequently, you would see more ads related to footwear

instead of being bombarded with ads for soft drinks. To make life more

interesting–and rewarding for the advertiser–the ads themselves could become

much more interactive. The advertiser could, for instance, build an ad with

different story lines and conduct a popularity poll amongst viewers. The winning

story line would then be telecast during the next brea. And viewers would come

back to see if their preferred story line won the polls or not.

The "Coca-Cola TXT for Music" interactive advertisement on Sky

Digital channel in the UK is aimed at convincing viewers to take part in Coke’s

promotional activities. By pressing on a red button on the remote, the viewer is

taken to a site where he can register by entering his mobile number. Viewers who

register are automatically entered into a prize draw for backstage passes for

Coca-Cola "Red Room" events across UK.

In addition to making advertising more effective by enhanced interactivity,

viewing habits will be measured far more effectively than today’s methods of

controversial random polls. That would, in turn, help advertisers figure out the

popularity of channels far more effectively. Game shows could take on a

different hue altogether with live voting across all viewers–not just studio

audiences. No need to go to a studio to take part in a contest. You could

exercise your choice sitting at home and win the brand new car with nothing more

than a few buttons pushed on your remote or an SMS being sent through your

mobile–and of course the smile of Lady Luck.

Technology makes all this and more feasible. The essence lies in adding

devices and software that make the one-way television broadcast a two-way

interactive event. The set top box–or similar devices built into the TV itself–carry

the return signal through a variety of channels to the interactive service

provider. The service provider runs the servers and software needed to manage

these transactions in real time. The whole process is similar to what happens on

the net–except that visuals and graphics are much more alive. And the

applications come to a much higher degree from the world of entertainment and

not the world of business where the Internet has developed.

Not that everything is in place. The technology is settling down. And

becoming commercially feasible. For an effective Interactive experience, it is

necessary that the system response is instantaneous. Technology also has to span

across the different methods that TV signals reach the viewer — digital cable,

satellite, wireless cable, the twisted pair and the Internet.

And there is tremendous amount of software to be put in place across many

platforms — Liberate, Open TV, Web TV, MSN TV and even Linux TV. Standards are

evolving and there is the usual jockeying taking place for lead spots. Software

is required for billing and transaction processing purposes, enabling t-commerce

transactions and for making the advertising enhancements. And bandwidth, cost

and cultural issues are going to pose question marks. So while the Interactive

TV world is near it is a bit out of reach.

The Conditional Access System is just the first step in this direction. It

would not be a good idea to debate about it for too long.

Shyam Malhotra



The author is Editor-in-Chief of Cyber Media, the publishers of Dataquest.