Social TV and Film

consumers have been slow to adopt any of the tablet and smartphone-based companion apps created for TV. It doesn’t seem to matter much what functionality the apps offer: discovery, additional content, social intercourse or remote control: the number of viewers willing to both download them and then use them on a regular basis has remained quite small*

There’s an oft-quoted Nielsen stat about how 84% of people are using their tablets while they are watching TV. Which generally means “checking their email or posting something on Facebook because they’re not all that engaged with whatever’s on TV.”

That’s where an actual second screen app may come into play. Both to initiate turning the first screen additional content on and off, and, once it’s up there, to interact with it. (Because for certain types of programming, polls and quizzes are always going to be an option.)

Still, you might say a revolution is brewing in the living room — and this one will be televised. It portends not only a change in the TV viewing experience but also poses a threat to cable and satellite TV distributors. Even network executives' notions about scheduling — how positioning a new show adjacent to a popular program in the evening lineup to drive ratings — look anachronistic at a time when Nielsen estimates that 47% of all American households have DVRs and can watch recorded shows whenever they choose, and 55% of broadband homes have at least one TV connected to the Internet, according to market researcher the Diffusion Group.

Concerns about how to reach this group known as the "never connecteds" and count their viewing in a show's ratings adds to a list of headaches that include slumping prime-time broadcast TV ratings and the flight of advertisers to cable.

these smart TVs may look dated compared with what Silicon Valley giant Intel has in store for later this year, not to mention whatever Apple Inc. is planning with its mysterious but hotly anticipated flat-screen TV.

Amplify is Twitter’s name for partnerships with media companies that focuses on the second-screen experience: fans talking about events and issues on live TV shows. Ninety-five percent of “live TV conversation” currently happens on Twitter, the company said in a recent blog post,

Twitter is doing a very neat three-way deal between the NBA, which gets its highlights promoted, and in this case, the movie After Earth, which gets publicity and the chance to increase its Twitter audience via the embedded Follow @AfterEarth account.

SportStream, which is backed by Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazer owner Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, aggregates social chatter about currently in-progress games with stats, scores, and rich data on what’s actually happening. The goal is a simple streaming second-screen experience: watch the game on the big screen, get involved in the dialog on the little screen.

TV Guide rolled out an app to see what’s playing, watch whatever’s on, and also tweet, post, and blog about it. And that Apple is rumored to be releasing a mini-TV tablet to enable an iOS-style second-screen experience.

SimulTV’s solution is to combine both screens, right on the web. So your football game, Twitter conversations, Facebook messages, online search, and text and voice chat with others on SimulTV who are watching the same thing as you.

by this summer, SimulTV promises to have more than 100 channels, including ”top channels” from Latin America, China, Japan and Europe, plus 5,000 video-on-demand titles. The service is HD-quality, with picture-in-picture for the truly ADHD social TV aficionados, and according to the company, takes only half the bandwidth of typically required.

In The Future of TV – A View from 2013, TDG asserts that in a shifting quantum media landscape video viewing will shift away from legacy pay-TV environments such as the living room television, and toward broadband and non-TV video platforms and app-enabled secondary screens such as tablets, which will in essence serve as second TVs.

the use of second screens like smartphones and tablets will pave the way to what it calls a full app-based ecosystem which will train users how to visit an app store, search and locate content, and download their own selection of third-party applications onto their devices.

pace of change it believes will be hindered by industry inertia, device replacement cycles, and resistance to change by the legacy TV viewing audience.

Each time the show goes to commercial, viewers following the TV broadcast with their computer, iPad or smartphone handy will be able to unlock unique content related to the finale’s plot that adds new dimensions to the story. (An on-screen prompt will read “The story continues now at CBC.ca/ArcticAir.”)

CBC’s goal is to reward the audience with a “transmedia storytelling event” that happens in tandem with the live broadcast.

provides more information on the characters, their motivations and elements that won’t be seen on TV.