 With
more people in Britain now watching TV on digital sets rather than
analogue, this seems a fitting time to revisit what the BBC's digital
chief had to say about the future for the industry that he foresaw.
This is the text of the speech by Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC New
Media & Technology, at the Royal Television Society on Oct 6 2003
I was reading an article the other day called "The Dangers of Wired Love",
about a teenage girl called Maggie, who helped her dad run a
newspaper-stand in Brooklyn. Business was booming, so Maggie's Dad,
George McCutcheon decided to get wired up, to help him process
electronic orders. Being a total techno-phobe, Mr. McCutcheon got
Maggie to operate the thing, but soon found out she was using it to
flirt with a number of men, particularly one married man she had met
online, called Frank. Breaking all the known rules of cyber dating, she
invited Frank to visit her in the real world, and of course he
accepted. McCutcheon found out, went mad and forbade his daughter to
meet up with Frank. But Maggie nevertheless continued to meet him in
secret. Her furious father found out and one day followed her to one of
the couple's rendezvous. He threatened to blow her brains out. She
later had him arrested and charged with threatening behaviour.
"Those of us in technology like to think we're breaking new ground,
that we're creating history through the latest revolution, when we're
quite clearly not..."
An every-day story of modern times--maybe? McCutcheon's fathering
skills perhaps a bit severe, and Maggie perhaps a little naïve? The
striking thing about this story is that is was published in a magazine
called Electrical World in 1886. The Victorian network that McCutcheon
got wired to, and Maggie got hooked on, was of course the Telegraph.
Those of us in technology like to think we're breaking new ground, that
we're creating history through the latest revolution, when we're quite
clearly not as the very modern Maggie McCutcheon illustrates. The
telegraph and the Internet are perhaps more evolution than revolution:
but in a way that means the seismic shifts in society that they cause
creep up on us unnoticed. But these cycles of change come round again
and again -- and people tend to see them as momentous and more often
than not scary. The future picture I want to paint today is one if
which I show that the world of TV is about to change drastically. But
nothing's quite as new as it seems. When the dust settled on both the
telegraph's 19th century technology boom and bust, and the Internet's
21st century re-run, the world still looked remarkably similar.
But the world has changed. Today's facts, free of hype, are that almost
50 percent of the nation has access to the Internet and that 50% of the
nation also has digital TV. What we are witnessing at the moment in the
UK is, I believe, a tipping point. As more people have digital TV in
the UK than don't, and as more homes are already connected to the Net
than are not, so the rate of take-up may actually increase, aided by a
number of social and technological forces coming together. This
critical phase for digital TV will take us through to analog switch off
which the government is aiming for in around seven year's time. The
successful media companies in this context will be those that realize
the landscape has changed and that viewers want to consume their media
in fundamentally different ways to the traditional image of a family,
gathered around the TV box, watching with rapt attention.
"Future TV...will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams
of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels..."
Up till now industry giants have promoted digital TV take up by betting
that the consumer wants more choice of channels and programmes -- more
movies, more sport. Sky has stated that it wants 8 million subscribers
within the next two years and realistically has 13 million homes in its
sights, over half the nation, and they've never missed a target yet.
This kind of take up though is not going to come from just offering
more linear channels. No -- future TV will may be unrecognisable from
today, defined not just by linear TV channels, packaged and scheduled
by television executives, but instead will resemble more of a
kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable
as actual channels. These streams will mix together broadcasters'
content and programmes, and our viewers' contributions. At the simplest
level -- audiences will want to organize and re-order content the way
they want it. They'll add comments to our programmes, vote on them and
generally mess about with them. But at another level, audiences will
want to create these streams of video themselves from scratch, with or
without our help. At this end of the spectrum, the traditional
"monologue broadcaster" to "grateful viewer" relationship will break
down, and traditional advertising and subscription models will no
longer be viable. Digital TV has, until this point, been led by the
commercial sector, but the next phase will see public sector services
playing a far greater role. As the creative R&D for the nation, the
BBC has a distinctive role to play in creating the content, services
and tools which audiences want for this future TV world and which the
market at the moment cannot risk providing.
Against this background, new research from the BBC has revealed four
new and significant social trends that show that the way in which we
consume TV is changing forever. From this we have been able to start
changing our programmes and content. Broadly these trends show that
viewers are taking much more control of what and how they view, they're
joining in with their programmes, consuming more media simultaneously,
and sharing all this content with each other.
"viewers are taking much more control of what and how they view"
There's danger in ignoring such changes and TV could really do without
suffering the same fate as the music industry in the 90s. Pop star Moby
in Time magazine in early 2000 talked about "the spread of instantly accessible digital media, where music will no longer be constrained by the limits of a compact disc." They ignored him. Then again he went on to say "Single pieces of music could be 75 minutes long, or six months long, or virtually infinite"...You
might not know Moby's music -- but take it from me, infinite Moby is a
pretty nightmarish prospect. So maybe it's not so surprising that
people ignored him. But the facts speak for themselves -- 3 years later
and 90 percent of music in Russia is pirated and CD sales have fallen
yet again by 20 percent in the UK in the past year. Sony claimed
recently that piracy had cost the music industry $7bn in the last two
years.
Unchecked the impact of the social changes I mentioned could be just as
serious for the broadcast industry. Addressed head on however and we
might just get to a digital Britain sooner than most pundits expect. So
let's look at each of these four changes and the way in which the
broadcast industry needs to adapt.
Firstly, consumers are taking control of their media consumption,
choosing not just the 'what' they watch but also the when, how and
where they watch it. Now most people here probably know that TiVo and
personal video recorders dramatically failed to rock anyone's world
when they originally launched in the UK. Consumers just couldn't see
the benefits for their £10 a month subscription. But in homes with
Personal video recorders (or PVRs), around 70 percent of viewing is
time-shifted: PVRs will mean we are able to finally break free of the
50-year-long tyranny of the TV schedule.
"PVRs will mean we are able to finally break free of the 50-year-long tyranny of the TV schedule."
As far back as 1950 the Daily Herald wrote "Delivery of the
new television set starts a violent change in the habits of the
household. Everything stops for viewing when the tuning chart appears.
Household timetables are rearranged; meals are pushed forward or back." The Daily Graphic was even more dramatic: "Housewives
are throwing aside their aprons", "downing their dusters in droves",
"and settling down in the front room much earlier in the evening. The
reason? Television." This same control over TV viewing habits
has been turned into a positive by TV executives: we now talk of water
cooler moments, of uniting the nation, of event television.
Water cooler moments have got nothing to do with scheduling and
everything to do with good programmes. With a new blockbuster film at
the cinema, we all want to see it and talk about it, but we don't all
have to see it on Tuesday at 8pm.
So the PVR is coming, make no mistake. Already hugely successful in the
US and relaunching here in the UK with a big push from Sky as I speak,
PVRs will become mass market in the next 5 years and make a profound
impact on programming. It will mean advert skipping, lower
channel/brand awareness and less ability to hammock audiences from one
programme to another.
In this world, "event" television will become more important, not less,
and channels that have a higher percentage of live programmes, or ones
you must watch live (perhaps in order to vote on the outcome) will win
out. We have anecdotal evidence from trials in Hull, the UK's most
advanced digital TV network, that audiences watch more, not less, TV
once they have a PVR, but they watch less of any one particular
programme, basically skipping through the boring bits. "Changing Rooms"
is a great example of this: audiences would watch the first five
minutes set up, then fast forward through the whole programme, and
catch the last five minutes when Mr. and Mrs. Jones, come home to find
their two bedroom suburban semi transformed into an S&M style
dungeon, courtesy of the shocked home owners graciously admire their
S&M inspired front room, Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen style.
"As broadcasters and programme makers, we should help bring forward this world where the viewer is in control."
As broadcasters and programme makers, we should help bring forward this
world where the viewer is in control. It will help sustain interest in
TV which otherwise runs the risk of being seen as increasingly flat and
inflexible not least by the PlayStation generation. We should create
more programmes that come with the meta-data, the tags in the programme
that allow it to be chopped up and consumed piece meal by the viewer.
We should perhaps even create shorter programmes!
The second trend our research showed was that the audience increasingly
wants to join in and get closer to their media. Let's just remind
ourselves of some of the recent participation TV successes --
programmes like Test the Nation, Restoration and Great Britons etc.
But these programmes still offer very little opportunity for the
audience to actually shape the programme, or get down to the really
micro-level of intimacy, localness, and personalization. But who wants
to get intimate with their TV? Well it seems that lots of people do.
Traditionally we have always thought that TV was about lying back
relaxing and at best, half hearted interaction. In fact, recent trials
again in Hull proved otherwise -- audiences want a lot more than this.
They want to create their own content either from scratch, or perhaps
using tools and support that a broadcaster can provide. In a
fragmenting society, media becomes a substitute for community. If TV
doesn't fulfill this need then our audience will find the media that
does, the rise and rise of games consoles, particularly the networked
ones, and of course the Internet, are in part testament to this.
"In a fragmenting society, media becomes a
substitute for community. If TV doesn't fulfill this need then our
audience will find the media that does..."
It's also becoming obvious to us that what we think of us as quality
programming might need to be refined in the light of audience
experience. For example, audiences might be willing to sacrifice full
screen, high picture quality TV for a more highly localized,
personalisable, timely service: the news, events and local gossip in
your town, delivered through digital TV. We are currently working on
just such a digital TV pilot to see if we can use our 50 local radio
stations to bring digital TV news, focused not just on large regions
like 'BBC South,' but on your specific county 'Hampshire', then your
town, 'Eastleigh', then even more personal -- your local community. The
point is you choose the focus. Could this ultra local TV be the shape
of local newsprogrammes to come?
The third trend is about consuming more media simultaneously -- which
is fast becoming the norm. Younger people are watching less TV -- this
is a fact. But not only are people watching less TV, they are also less
focused on the programmes and ads they do actually watch. Amongst the
under 34s, viewing now falls into two distinct camps: high attention
and appreciation for a few (and I mean very few) programmes, and much
larger scale ambient or even apathetic viewing for the rest of the time
the telly is on.
Here's two facts worth thinking about. 1) 50 percent of all viewing is
now a secondary activity. This figure was 5 percent in 1952. 2) 1/3 of
the time that young people spend on media is now spent on new media
(that's mobiles, games consoles and the Internet.) How should we, the
industry, respond to this? We need to get off the "slap a vote on"
bandwagon to try and re-engage this younger audience. As a public
service broadcaster, we don't want to neglect any generation and deny
them the benefits in terms of informing, educating and entertaining
which television provides.
"We need to get off the "slap a vote on" bandwagon to try and re-engage this younger audience."
One major new direction we are looking at in this context is to
purposely create ambient TV, TV that is meant to be watched with just
half your attention span, or just listened to, perhaps while you do
something else. This is of course exactly what radio on digital TV is,
and it is no surprise therefore that it has been a great success with 8
million people now regularly listening to radio in this way. At the
BBC, we are now taking this even further, not by creating TV out of
radio, but by creating a new type of service -- let's call it enhanced
audio. When you tune to BBC radio services on digital TV, you can get
the digital audio broadcast (DAB) text too, and we're working on more
features for next year -- votes, webcams, message boards and so on.
A completely different idea to come out of our Research &
Development division is to take the audio description that we do for
the blind, where a voice-over describes what is happening on screen in
between the actors speaking, and make this audio stream available to
everyone through interactive TV. You can keep up with the plot of a
drama whilst not actually having to watch the screen.
And finally, the last trend -- sharing. Broadband, which is growing
exponentially in the UK (up 200 percent year on year to around 2.5
million subscribers now) will make downloading of decent video quality
worthwhile, easy and cheap via the net. Downloading and sharing this
video is the final piece of the jigsaw and will create a killer
combination that I believe could undermine the existing models of
pay-TV.
The killer combination is broadband together with digital TV and PVRs,
plus the ability to share this video in the same peer-to-peer model
with which music files are exchanged on the net. Broadband will provide
the rich on-demand content; digital TV through Freeview will make 40
channels and interactive services available to the masses for free;
PVRs will provide the means to break from the tyranny of the TV
schedule; and sharing will enable file swapping of personal as well as
broadcast content. It really doesn't matter if this solution is built
into a PC as with the Microsoft's Media Centre, Sony's new PlayStation
or a set top box. It all basically adds up to the same solution: a box
and a screen -- offering unparalled video, TV, interactive and games
content. What I'm certain of, is that this killer combination will be
in half of all UK homes, in one form or another, by the end of this
decade.
In this near future world, you'll now be watching a combination of
programmes: some from existing TV channels, some off the Internet,
others stored on your own hard disk at home, or swapped electronically
with friends. You'll need a pretty sophisticated on-screen navigation
tool to find your way around programmes or content that comes from so
many different sources:. We've started to think about what this tool,
this Super -Electronic Programme Guide might look like. The product in
development is called iMP, the Interactive Media Player, and our
gateway to the future. It will work both on the PC screen when you've
got a mouse in your hand, and the TV screen controlled by an ordinary
remote control.
"Audiences to some radio programmes like
the Archers or Radio One's Essential Selection, have increased by up to
30 percent thanks to the Internet Radio Player"
iMP will allow you to record programmes in advance, like Sky+ or the
humble video recorder. It will stream programmes live and will allow
you to download any content we have broadcast, say in the last week, in
exactly the same way as you can now access network radio shows online
via the BBC's Internetal Radio Player. Audiences to some radio
programmes like the Archers or Radio One's Essential Selection, have
increased by up to 30 percent thanks to the Internet Radio Player, and
there's no reason to suppose iMP wouldn't be as popular with TV
programmes.
And this is where the Creative Archive, which Greg [Dyke] announced in
Edinburgh, comes in. As it is both part of our charter obligation to
make our archive available where possible and practicable, and part of
our online consent to act as an essential resource offering wide
ranging, unique content, it is through iMP, that pieces of our content
could be retrieved from our archive, downloaded, and used for personal
use.
We are exploring legitimate peer-to-peer models to get our users to
share our content, on our behalf, amongst themselves, transparently.
And as an industry, we should be more active in creating legitimate
content download products, whether that's as a pay-model, or
rights-cleared for free. We need to help consumers leap-frog the
illegal downloading issues that have wrecked havoc on the music
industry. Here's what we believe is the shape of things to come, a way
for people to search for whatever they are interested in -- perhaps in
the case of a natural history for a school project -- searching from
Buffalos to Bears -- and then download it for their use.
"There is no reason ... that we can't be the world's most advanced, connected, digital nation.."
"Our vision is of a 100 percent digital Britain, with everyone connected.
Our vision is of a 100 percent digital Britain, with everyone
connected. We believe that there are enough social and technological
changes to indicate that we might be at a tipping point, where we could
see the take-up rate of digital media increasing, rather than
decreasing. As the BBC, we've got a huge responsibility to innovate and
put new types of programmes, products and services into the market
place to stimulate interest and demand. As our audiences increasingly
turn away from the traditional concept of TV, and we increasingly enter
a two-way high-speed relationship with them, and they with each other,
we've got to run just to stay one step ahead of them. Aggressively
prototyping services like I've shown you, maybe getting it wrong
sometimes, but sharing our learning with one another, is, I believe,
the way to do it. There is no reason, given our world leading broadcast
and content industry, and the UK's track record in innovation, that we
can't be the world's most advanced, connected, digital nation, with all
benefits in terms of an educated, enlightened, tolerant, society that
this might bring.
I hope you don't leave here tonight resigning me firmly to the ranks of
Nostradamus or worse, Moby. I realize that these scenarios have a
number of imponderables about them and will play out over time. Maybe
I'm reading all the signals wrongly, perhaps my Bush telegraph is wired
up incorrectly. But its unlikely in the current market that anyone will
get too carried away on electric dreams, all I want to ensure is that
we as an industry don't suffer the same fate as the music industry.
There is no reason, given our world leading broadcast and content
industry, represented so well by the people in this room tonight, and
the UK's track record in innovation, that we can't be the world's most
advanced, connected, digital nation, with all benefits in terms of an
educated, enlightened, tolerant, society that this might bring.
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