In Broadcast - May 2014 - 80

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 31 - MAY 2014

N E W S

InMEDIA

The Spotifyization Of Television
Piksel looks to the music industry to figure out the future of television...

By Alan Wolk
Global Lead Analyst, Piksel

I

80

n the broad curve of technological
change, the music industry has,
for better and for worse, always
been a few years ahead of the
television industry.
And while the very different
business models between the two
industries translates to very different
disruption models, if you want to
see where the future of television
will net out, you need to look no
further than Spotify.
Will everything be on demand,
with viewers sifting through a
huge catalogue of shows to ﬁnd
something to watch that night? Or,
will there still be linear TV, where
all the viewer is required to do is
hit the "on" button and sink back
on the couch?
Spotify provides the answers to
these questions; and judging from
its success, the answer is both.
Spotify works because it solves all
of the various use case scenarios its
audience might have. If you feel like
listening to a speciﬁc song, Spotify
lets you do that, even providing
alternate and cover versions. Feel
like listening to a playlist you've
made yourself, the latter-day version
of the mixtape? You can do that too.
Have a friend with really great
taste in music and want to listen to
their playlists? All you need to do is
subscribe - the latter day version of
the gifted mixtape.
And finally, if you just want
someone else to take over the

controls, Spotify provides a variety
of curated "radio stations" either
through the app or via third party
providers like SoundCloud and
Rolling Stone.

Television Plays
So if we look at how this plays out
in television, we'll soon see a very
similar array of options:
Video on Demand (VoD): If there's
a particular show or movie you want
to watch, you'll be able to do a quick
search and call it up. This will also
allow for binge viewing, as you'll be
able to watch an entire season at
once or just the four episodes that
you missed. VOD viewing can be a
quick half hour surgical strike, or a
long evening of catch-up - whatever
suits your mood;
Playlists: Viewers will have their
own playlists of TV series they are
in the midst of watching, movies
they've ﬂagged for future viewing
and/or repeats of their favourite
shows. These will function like music
playlists - one show plays right after
the next, so there's no need to go
back to the programme guide after
every episode;
Curated Playlists: These can be
from friends or from professional
curators and may be around a
speciﬁc topic: best crime dramas,
best of CSI, best of 90s sitcoms -
the possibilities are endless. Viewers
can watch the entire playlist at once
or just work their way through the

Viewers will have their own playlists of TV series

list one at a time;
Linear Stations: These will function
similar to the "radio" stations on
music services today and will in large
part be curated by today's cable and
broadcast networks. They will have
original, ﬁrst-run content that's aired
at a speciﬁc day and time. Users
will be able to personalise them by,
say, emphasising certain types of
content (e.g. comedies), but some
version of prime time will remain
in effect because there's still a lot
of love for a shared communal live
viewing experience beyond just
news and sports;
Personalised Linear Stations:
These will be the oft-cited "Pandora
for TV" - the viewer inputs some of
the shows or types of shows they
like and an algorithm puts together a
personalised linear station for them,
a combination of live broadcast,
VoD and non-broadcast video
from alternative providers. Users
will be able to set up linear stations
for short-form content, long-form
content or both.
As with the current music
services, how you watch will vary
depending on your mood, your time
commitment, even your personality.
There are people who love the
randomness of Pandora, others who
want to control their entire listening
experience and every variation in
between. TV will work the same way
and truth is, many of us are already
watching it this way: bingeing on
series via VoD or streaming services
like Amazon, watching live sporting
events or NBC's Thursday night
line-up, supplementing our pay TV
subscriptions with Netﬂix, Hulu and
other streaming services.

Personalisation
And Monetisation
If there's a particular show or movie you want to watch, you'll be able to do a
quick search and call it up

Personalisation will be the
buzzword as everyone will have
their own TV service that travels

with them no matter what device
they're watching on.
Though here again, there may
be playlists or stations viewers
associate with their mobile phones
or tablets, given the environment
they're in when they watch on their
phone (out of home, on a train, etc.)
Recommendations will be essential
in this new world, as viewers are
looking for new shows to add to
existing playlists, new playlists to
add to their rotation and new shows
on linear channels that become
"appointment TV" for them.
Monetisation will be key to
enabling this new world and the
solution is likely to come in two
forms: (a) dynamically inserted
ad units that run using algorithms
that take into account time of
day, location, what show is being
watched and the user's prior
behaviour and (b) straight-up fees
which will enable a viewer to watch
an entire series without commercial
interruption or to access special
super-premium content that's above
and beyond the usual fare.
The operators who run these multiplatform systems will differentiate
themselves the same way the music
services currently do: variations in
the interface and user experience.
To wit, the hand-curated playlists on
the Beats Music service is something
that could easily be adapted to
television and give whoever offered
them a competitive advantage.
The future of television isn't far
off, but unlike the music industry,
it's not going to change overnight.
There are too many legal restrictions,
too many complicated rights issues,
too much legacy equipment in
the ﬁeld to see the sort of rapid
metamorphosis we've seen in other
media industries. It will change
though and the challenge now is
to actually build it.
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