Fact: TV technology can stop Christmas arguments

According to that old Andy Williams song, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. The time when our thoughts turn to all things joyful, festive, peaceful… and, let’s be honest, what we’re going to watch on TV.

Even in the recent past, Christmas TV viewing could be a thorny issue, especially if you had two – or more – generations gathering together. The arguments about what to watch were as fierce as those about who should be washing the dishes.

But because of advances in technology, this will soon be a dim memory. Thanks to the advent (sorry) of superfast mobile networks, smart devices and on demand services, there are more ways to watch TV content across multiple screens than ever before, whether the members of your household are at home or not.

What’s more, use of online services to watch TV and films is growing, and young people are increasingly using catch-up or video platforms like YouTube, rather than watching programmes when they are broadcast. Along with a massive spike in the use of mobile devices for video content, this indicates less reliance on the TV set. It really could be the end for the couch potato :)

TV is big business – and I should say here that my company offers a TV service in Switzerland. The number of households with TV worldwide is predicted to reach 1.59 billion this year. It’s a prominent part of our lives after all; can you imagine what would happen to our social media feeds if there was no mention of what we’ve been watching? And what on earth would we talk about at work?

It’s going to get a lot more exciting too. Here are a few trends I’ve been keeping an eye on.

• Customisation. Our personal preferences don’t end with how we choose to watch TV. Customisation is becoming more and more important to consumers. And this goes far beyond having your name written on your takeaway coffee cup. As far as TV goes, it’s following in the footsteps of what happened with music; people want to access their own preferred content through catch up, replay and video on demand services. And the latest TV services are offering customisation tools like programme tips to create an individual viewing experience. Some will even help you pick the perfect programme. These will become more sophisticated and intuitive as virtual assistants become a familiar fixture in our lives.
• Globalisation. Conversely, content production itself has been globalised through scalable costs and over-the-top delivery models like Netflix and Amazon Prime, which piggyback on a broadband provider’s network for delivery. It’s now possible to see original shows from all around the world that otherwise you would probably never have heard of.
• Virtual reality. Another obvious development is offering virtual reality experiences with TV content. So if you want to get in among the characters in your favourite drama series or have a real bird’s eye view of the surroundings in a nature documentary, this will start to be offered as standard sooner rather than later. It still won’t tell you which characters are robots and which are human in Westworld though.
• IP production. Something else I like is the way that broadcasters like Sony and the BBC are looking towards Internet protocols to make and transmit their shows. These offer the promise of cheaper, more efficient ways to deliver the highest quality imaging – including Ultra HD – meaning not only a better experience for viewers, but potentially lower cost services too.

Of course there are plenty of other things to argue about at Christmas, and no amount of new technology is ever going to settle the score about whether Die Hard is actually a Christmas film. But that’s okay. (And I’m keeping my opinion to myself here.)

Enjoy your festive viewing. And if you were wondering about Andy Williams, here’s the song I mentioned…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtb3EtjEic

Photo credit: keriluamox