The Future of TV?

Over the last couple of weeks I have been pondering what the future might hold for the medium we all spend a day a week watching still. (I have to confess I have been prompted to these thoughts by the need to write a speech on this subject, promised to a conference next week!)

What have I found in my researches?

Firstly, TV is in rude health. Despite doom-mongers prophesising its impending demise viewing to TV is stronger than ever, and showing no signs of abating. If anything I suspect viewing levels will continue to grow going forward as we all read less and watch more.

Secondly, there is no evidence that TV viewing will be replaced by consumers watching video online. Whilst lots of people do watch video online (43% of us at last count) we don’t spend much time doing it (less than 1% of our media day).
My third finding is that we are about to see a huge amount of change in the TV landscape. The last few years have seen an explosion of channels (from 3 when I started to 650+ now), digitisation, the advent of the PVR, but, as the poet said “you ain’t seen nothing yet”
The big impacts, I think, will come from 3D and HD devices, on demand content (the launch of YouView from the BBC et al next year), searchable content and personalised interfaces (Google, Apple and others launching this year) and home media centres that will allow movement of content across devices (Virgin, BT, this year and early next).

So from a technology point of view we will see huge change. But what impact will it have?

Well for viewers I'm not sure the impact will be that great. In five years' time we may well be able to watch anything we want, anywhere, on any device. I suspect that for the majority of us our viewing habits will not change. Most viewing is a passive activity. We get home, slump in front of the set, and watch what schedulers put in front of us. Even when we have PVR technology for ease of recording and playback, or video on demand via iPlayer through our TV’s, less than 9% of viewing in those households is on demand or time shifted.

So, our viewing patterns won’t change radically in terms of what we watch. But I think the one change that might be drastic is how we watch TV. We used to watch in social groups, typically families gathered around a single set. That is a thing of the past. But we are fundamentally social animals and TV viewing is a social activity - conversations around the water machine in the morning about last night’s viewing convince us all of that. And the growth of social media, now almost 25% of all internet time, and engaging 40% of all of us each week, reflects that need.#

One of the big changes I foresee to TV viewing over the coming years is the convergence of social media and TV. We used to watch TV in physical groups, all in the same room. I see us watching TV in virtual groups, chatting in real time to friends or family about the programme we are physically, separately, watching. That has huge implications for advertisers, about which more next time ......