Dual screen viewing is good news for TV, says conference

The rise of dual screen viewing and the use of social media by viewers while watching television is a bonus for the TV industry. At least that was the general feeling expressed at yesterday's Westminster Media Forum conference held at The Royal Aeronautical Society.

The mood was upbeat as industry speakers gave their predictions about how TV viewing would be affected by social media and dual screen viewing and how it could harness it, use it to enhance the TV experience and hopefully monetise it too.

Simon Terrington of research firm Terrington and Co said that linear television had stayed strong as a medium despite predictions a decade ago that it would wither in the face of on-demand and catch up viewing and IPTV. He said it had stayed strong due to the fact that there is still no substitute for the power of TV advertising, and that broadcasters had stayed relevant through creating compelling digital channels and catch-up services. He said it was also because British TV had remained creatively excellent but also because viewers had a habit of watching linear TV.

Peter Bazalgette used his keynote address to talk about the power of live TV and how the live TV experience had become stronger in the face of new technologies. He said that as recorded media had become increasingly less special as it was instantly accessible, this meant the live TV broadcast of a sport or entertainment event that viewers didn't know the outcome of, would have an enduring value both to audiences and advertisers. He said that the rise of people using social media to comment on TV shows made watching shows live, or at the same time as everyone else, even more compelling.

Much of the conference focussed on how TV should embrace second screen activity and turn it into a positive for TV makers. Tom McDonnell of Monterosa, the company behind the second screen play-along games for Million Pound Drop and The Bank Job, said it was important for TV makers to spend time discovering the creative possibilities of second screen applications so they could feed them into their ideas. David Flynn, md of Remarkable, the indie behind Million Pound Drop and The Bank Job, added later that the success of those shows' second screen applications came about because they had focused on ideas themselves and were based on what viewers would want to do rather than what was technically possible.