Issues in Focus

The [itvt] editorial team develops the agenda for our TV of Tomorrow Show events through an extensive dialoguing process with the readership of the [itvt] newsletter (which includes many key industry players), in order to ensure that each show covers all the issues that are currently of most pressing importance to the industry. As a result, we typically announce the agenda just a few weeks before each show. However, some of the issues that we expect to explore at TVOT 2013 include:

• Reports from the field: How recent deployments of tcommerce, interactive TV advertising, dynamic and addressable VOD advertising, social TV, second-screen applications, connected-TV applications, live streaming of multichannel pay-TV services within the home, "TV Everywhere"/TV placeshifting, and other advanced-TV offerings are faring in the real world; and what the success or otherwise of these deployments tells us about the business models for the TV of tomorrow. Which interactive platforms and services are attracting audiences and generating revenues today and how?  
• The potential of tcommerce--whether on cable systems, connected TV's or second-screen devices--to revolutionize the economics of television and advertising.
• The second screen: Pay-TV operators', broadcasters' and advertisers' embrace of the iPad and other companion devices, and the impact of this phenomenon on the user experience, the programming formats and the business models of television.
• Best practices for developing second-screen content.  
• The emergence of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology as an enabler of broadcast-synchronized interactive TV advertising and programming enhancements, both on second-screen devices and connected-TV sets; and the implications this holds for established interactive TV technologies and business models.
• Understanding the ACR industry: What are the specialties and strengths of the various players, and what are their competitive and collaborative relationships with one another and with other industry players?
• The evolving relationship between ACR-based synchronization and set-top box sync.
• The implications of the incorporation of ACR and other "intelligent" technologies into connected TV's: What kinds of opportunities does a truly smart TV make possible?
• Questions of intellectual property rights, including new issues raised by multiplatform TV distribution, the revitalization of longtail programming content, and the emergence of content-hungry second-screen interactive TV experiences.  
• Recent and pending developments in interactive and advanced TV standards, and how these standards need to evolve going forward.
• How interactive technologies are giving rise to new forms of cross-platform storytelling and new narrative genres.   
• The ongoing challenges involved in accurately measuring and understanding TV viewership on non-traditional platforms.
• The new forms of data that are being generated by interactive and social TV, and how brands and agencies can take advantage of them to make their campaigns more targeted, more accountable and thus more effective.
• The status of cable's transition to IP.
• The implications for the cable industry of operators' embrace of such phenomena as connected TV ("the cable app"), live streaming, and TV placeshifting.
• The emergence of connected-TV advertising.
• The emergence of social-TV advertising and commerce.
• The emergence of "virtual MSO's" and other content providers that are seeking to take advantage of delivery via connected TV; and the implications of this phenomenon for traditional TV content providers and operators.
• The emergence of personalized video experiences that draw on the viewer's social graph.
• How questions of content discovery and navigation have become central to television's future.
• What the TV industry can learn from interactive online video advertising.

• The emergence of the app--whether on connected-TV or second-screen platforms--as the gateway to the television experience: is our conception of the app still beholden to the PC/desktop model, and, if so, what would be a truly television-centered conception of the app?
• The extent to which the "cord-cutting" phenomenon presents an existential threat to the pay-TV industry; and the extent to which new developments in pay-TV, such as dynamic VOD ad insertion, TV Everywhere, and the incorporation of TV placeshifting technology into set-top boxes, will help operators defend against any threat posed by cord-cutting.
• "Cord-shaving": The new ways in which consumers are configuring their TV experience, and how the pay-TV industry, broadcasters and other stakeholders can take advantage of consumers' evolving relationship with multichannel television.
• The future of TV design: How to ensure that usability and high-quality design become a core element of the interactive TV user experience, and not just an afterthought; strategies for designing consistent, cross-screen and cross-platform interactive video experiences; making the business case for good design; the complex and evolving relationship between design and content discovery/navigation; and the impact of "extra-screen" technologies such as 3D and augmented reality on TV user interface design.
• The emergence of natural user interfaces: How gestural- and voice-control technologies and touchscreen interfaces are reinventing the user experience of television.
• The reinvention of television as a personalized, portable--and in some cases gamified and immersive--experience.  
• Understanding international ITV markets: Advanced TV opportunities in Europe, Asia and beyond.
• The emergence of video-powered social TV, that employs such services as Vine, Skype and Google+ Hangouts, and its potential impact on the evolution of programming formats.  
• The emergence of brands (e.g. Chevrolet and Coca-Cola) as providers of second-screen interactive/social-TV experiences in their own right, and the implications of this phenomenon for the nascent second-screen ITV industry.
• The incorporation of social media into live programming, and the impact of this phenomenon on the content and monetization of television.
• Envisioning the next-generation cable set-top box, and defining its role in an increasingly "boxless" TV ecosystem.
• The centrality of sports as a driver of television innovation.
• The emerging importance of facial recognition technologies and their impact on TV interfaces, personalization and measurement.
• Connected-TV app stores, over-the-top delivery of live and on-demand programming, hybrid pay-TV/OTT offerings, the "open cable API," "cable-as-an-app," and more: The rapidly evolving inter-relationships between the pay-TV, consumer electronics and programming/content industries.

• The current state of investment in the interactive/advanced TV space. How are new investment trends, such as the emergence of AngelList, equity crowdfunding, and accelerators, impacting the industry?
• The impact of new interactive broadband video technologies (hotspotting, overlays, image tracking, etc.) on the interactive TV space.
• The ways in which Facebook and Twitter have become key players in the TV space; the relationship between these services and smaller, dedicated social-TV platforms; and what broadcasters, advertisers and pay-TV operators need to understand about the social-TV phenomenon and its potential to change the nature of programming and the economics of television.
• The continued importance of gaming to the interactive TV industry, and the convergence of gaming and social TV.
• The latest tools for creating, delivering and testing interactive and multiplatform television.
• How interactive and social TV will impact local broadcasters and advertisers.
• The emergence of 360-degree immersive interactive TV experiences that subvert traditional notions of the screen.
• The impact of video streaming on the Internet infrastructure; the significance of such issues as Net Neutrality and bandwidth caps for the broadband video industry; and emerging standards (e.g. HEVC/H.265) and technologies for enabling high-quality streaming in low-bandwidth environments.   
• The practicalities of interactive content development, deployment, and tracking.
• The diversification of the cable business: How will the emergence of new cable offerings such as managed home services (e.g., broadband-based monitoring and security and automation) impact the cable industry going forward?