Competition heats up for TV 2.0

By Staff Writer for Gartner

Johannesburg, 01 Jul 2009

The battle for the future of TV 2.0 is on, with industry players all trying to get a slice of the pie as computing converges with TV , according to Gartner.

TV 2.0 broadly describes the convergence of TV, PC and the Web.

The global research firm says although the web of players competing to lead the way for TV 2.0 is gaining some definition, content providers, device makers, cloud providers and communications firms need to join forces to secure the future of next-generation TV.

"At the moment, the future of TV is clouded by an excess of stakeholders, most of whom have a defensible position in television's future," says Gartner research vice-president, Allen Weiner.

Winning formula

According to Weiner, telco providers, Web search engines and portals, and new media titans, such as Apple and Microsoft, are looking for a significant stake in the future of TV, despite vague revenue models for next-generation broadcasting.

He adds that regardless of market segment, a number of overarching factors will determine which stakeholders emerge with what level of future power. These factors include the agility of companies to keep up with consumer trends, regulatory influences, and the ability to create close ties with advertisers, as well as follow trends in consumer media usage.

Gartner emphasises that successful stakeholders will need to partner with organisations in different market segments to fully enable the future of TV.

"In order for content to ultimately be delivered to consumers outside of traditional paths of linear programming, such as cable and satellite, a number of market segments need to come together, namely content, bandwidth, devices and cloud-based services,” says Andrew Frank, research vice-president at Gartner.

According to a Gartner statement: ”Consumers and advertisers are playing a key role in funding the entire enterprise, while the role of regulators, which has been extremely prominent in established broadcasting, remains relatively ill-defined in the over-the-top world.”