I am vexed at this though! Why?  Because I see that we strive forward as a collective group of mostly engineers hell-bent on trying to convince the world that 3DTV is the next step…when it may damage eyes to the point that we had better, and pretty soon find the answer to the absorbtion of images neurologically because we may be on route to blinding a generation….The folly of the human being and the “no sir, nicotine is not harmful!” attitude of businessmen is a frightening legacy!

The UK has this time refused to join the latest EBU initiative and plods on with MHEG5 and possibly HbbTV if YouView ever sees the light of day.  Italy has deployed a massive 12 Million of DVB-MHP decoders – Companies follow slavishly the Standards work spending millions of dollars to see the someone else invent something else to do the same thing and disrupt the market.  So why don’t we drop the standards game and just get on with an all out technology war so that we have an eventual winner?  Well we will not because we have a physical landscape in Europe that does not permit this – Economies of Scale for TV Manufacturers needs a Pan-European Standard.  The European Commission has failed to understand this part of the business and has allowed the lobbyists and dinosaurs who chair the committees to sway decisions, write half hearted reports, pretending the goals have been achieved.  Madame Croes, they haven’t served the European Consumer well!  The proof is in the latest call for Standards in Hybrid Broadcasting from the EBU who in the document name 3 Standards already built for the job.  What a mess!

The very exercise that you all talk of (cord cutting, TV everywhere, Search for what you want etc). I have asked ordinary folk (i.e. non TV execs) to do – they give up searching after 15 minutes, they get tired, bored and fed-up very quickly or frustrated and then go to look for now and next (linear TV) and they are not content after a long day in the office to sit down and search for what they want when they want where they want. That is the premise nay the mantra that we live by in the TV industry today but it is far from the truth or reality. The majority of Cable in Europe is still heavily analogue. Satellite cannot go OTT readily. Even AppleTV functions well but requires effort to find something even if it is simple to use, it requires conscious effort. The PVR gives huge additional viewing. OTT costs money in time, equipment and will eventually in subscription fees all round. We are a long way from the final landscape of TV it is becoming very much overwhelming what we can do with the same set of TV programmes that are in the main repeats (back-catalogue). Linear TV still makes it easy for the viewer, taking the strain out of selecting something to clear the mind, entertain after a long day in the office or playing with the kids in the park. We are even overwhelmed by the amount of news there is about new TV technologies…I wish to be here in 50 years to see what it turns into…I wont!

Broadcast TV blasts a 30 second Ad into the subconscious (whether you “like” it or not, in order to plant a seed…”buy my brand”.   On the other hand a call to action like “visit” a Facebook or Web page needs a conscious effort from an individual … and quite frankly you have to be pretty strange if you want to be a fan of cough or flu medicine.  On a daily basis I am being asked to go to a Facebook page fro something.  I have my own promoting a book and it gets NO VISITORS, not because the book is not interesting but because it is a pain in the ass to actually go out of your way to be a Fan of something.  Initially novel but the amount of time needed to do all this “following” makes it a full time job!  I have blogged 3 articles this morning and its been 3 hours of work!

Therefore certain Brands relying on Social Media will just wither and die from lack of interest.   Yes I say it again there are just too many Brands for people to follow on a personal basis this day and age.  We are swamped with Companies asking us to go to their Website, Social Media Sites, Newsletters etc. We Will have our favourites for sure but out shopping we fall upon Brands that spark an impulse buy because the Brands have been bombarding us via TV & Print media…

Social Media is not all bad!  I am actually a fan of Twitter as it can be (if understood) well used to succintly tailor a tease message. It can surprise and delight with stories that you may never have fallen upon due to the clever use of the enticement in the small amount of words.  However the results of some Twitter experiences leave a lot to be desired.  The Twitter Feed during the Eurovision song contest (a much maligned competition but loved by billions) highlighted that if you give the common person a voice you might not enjoy what you get. The result of the 2011 Eurovision Twitter Feed was a purile, bigoted, unhealthy diatribe that added nothing to the event. It merely brought out the worst in the simpletons who used it to pour out unfettered racist comments.

Facebook can be as dangerous:  I bought a Print Server from DLink it didnt work as it said it would on the box. I tried for several long hours to make it work.  No joy!  So I thought lets see how good their Social Media game is!  I took the Facebook route to get straight to the Company.  The entire list of comments were about how bad, dificult and rubbish their products are.   There for all to see!  Happy customers dont really want to be fans or comment and adore the DLink brand because the purchases are once in a blue moon technology needs and if they work people just get on with life, the Internet and other more fun Facebook stuff with actual friends.  What was interesting was the Social Media Monitoring Manager (more OPEX) wrote to me and asked if I had contacted tech support!!!  If a brand new product – ‘PlugnPlay’ – needs Instant Tech Support then something is wrong.   I suggested they buy it back from me, especially  if they are confident enough about their products and their Brand…no answer!  DLink is now scratched off my list of Brands.

Its a dangerous game to follow the Facebook bandwagon. Many PR disaters ‘a la Qantas’ are going to happen because for many it is not the professional place it is thought to be!  Sure there will be lots of stories of how wonderful it can be and the control is in the hands of the public etc.  However you have to assess your place in the market, what you believe you will achieve and not just run blindly into Social Media thining it is going to be the answer to customer loyalty = more revenue = happy people.  It might just jump up and bite you on the ass!  Social Media is merely the opening of Pandoras box when you allow the public a voice.

At the recent OTT World Summit held in London where the “worlds television executives” gathered to hear the latest and greatest sales pitches from all & sundry there was yet another Standards discussion. We hear it all the time – We need a Standard! Actually what we get is – My TV system is better than your TV system, My Standard is better than your TV Standard etc. This is not grown up, nor intelligent, always arguing that we do it this way because it’s better than your way! What is at stake? All that SDOs are trying to fix the age old problem of implementing Value Added Services on top of Programming nothing more! It will not help world peace, it will not feed starving families it is just Interactive TV – STOP the fighting! Reunite the SDOs and let’s agree and get on with it so we can develop decent value added services that make a difference! And by the way they are not news portals, nor teletext with pictures thank you very much, we did that 20 years ago!!

It is a fairly tiresome business keeping up with all of this infighting that has taken place over those last 20 years or more, WHY? Because little has changed. As mentioned above the latest proponents of a World Standard for Digital TV is the HbbTV Forum. Their presentation did not have any earth shattering statements, they did not discuss how the particular “product” is made or how it matches up to other Standards – nor the miserable amount of expensive receivers that have NOT been shipped into Germany. They only managed a few stretched truths about its success, but lobbyists and supporters are are guilty of that. (Yes me too!) Despite the announcement today from Spain that it has selected this latest and greatest technology (It is not news it is lobbying) it changes nothing to the overall problem. Take-up and use of Advanced Services needs only one thing – Good and Useful Value Added Services that bring added value to the consumer. Teletext and URLs to video links will just not cut the mustard at 200 Euros a STB! Spanish TV will not flourish because of this selection. France and Germany are a gauge! Counter Lobbying haha!?

Back to the problem of people and standards! During the ensuing OTTWS Panel discussion I stated that the basic technology is still the same. There is a Presentation Engine and a Execution Engine and they either work together or they don’t depending on your chosen poison. Nothing has changed since Digital TV ever appeared. Android is the latest sexy STB & iDTV middleware that we all race to implement as is HTML5 but what are they if they are not Presentation and Execution Engines? Who owns or controls the IPR? You see where this might be heading.

So here is the solution – With Hybrid & Convergence being axiomatic for Digital TV solutions we should ultimately look at CONVERGING Standards Development Organisations and Standards Bodies as well. Do we need different groups rubber stamping a technology? Do we need SDOs all feeding off of each others work? Do we need multiple Standards? Most of all do we need to waste Company time, effort and money on following these different strains of the same thing? And more so is it right that we have disingenuous people sitting on one organisation who have influence, also sitting on the competing one, also in a position of influence, just so their Company ultimately gets their technology (IPR) into one or the other or both of the Standards! Not to mention the ‘blockers’ who attend so their Company can get about selling as much as possible of its proprietary implementation before a standard can be achieved. Because that is all that this is about in reality – Selling stuff.

Standards have become a pawn in the IPR game and the more we move along the more we go backwards to a fully disparate systems all pretending to be “the solution”. But then again why worry about any of this because as I have been told by the authorities that do have the power to change all of this – “Young man, the ‘market’ will decide”! – However from what I personally experienced at the OTTWS which is symptomatic of the Digital TV business, I may never get to see that happen!