Seven Network banking on widget TVs to generate ad revenue from online

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 01 December 2009 03:11

IT Industry - Strategy

The Seven Network, through its TiVo distributor subsidiary, is hoping to transition the advertising-funded content model of free-to-air television into the online world through TiVo's new CASPA VoD service and the expected uptake of widget enabled televisions.

Hybrid Television Services, the Seven subsidiary that it is the exclusive TiVo distributor in Australia, last week launched CASPA - a video on demand service delivered through the TiVo PVR and a broadband Internet connection.  It promises "a world of broadband entertainment including new release movies, hit TV shows for the whole family as well as free music videos, artist interviews and music concerts."

Hybrid TV CEO, Robbee Minicola, told iTWire that the company's ambition was for much of the content on CASPA to be advertising funded and for the service to be available direct to TVs without the need for a TiVo.

"It is not our intention to make it available exclusively through TiVo. From April next year all [new] TVs are going to have widget television and Internet capability...We want to get CASPA up there, to be available direct to TVs, without users needing to own a TiVo."

The Widget Television concept was launched by Yahoo! and Intel in August 2008 as an evolution of Yahoo!'s confabulator-based PC widgets. The widgets appear as a series of icons on the bottom of the TV screen giving access to a range of services, and rely on the TV having access to a broadband connection, as well as the ability to support the widgets.

According to Minicola "Every TV manufacturer will get widget partnerships and will have WiFi capability so that when first installed it will automatically seek out the home WiFi network and request the owner to put in their password." However to date, Yahoo! has announced Widget partnerships only with LG, Sony, Samsung and Vizio (a US HDTV maker).

Minicola said that Hybrid TV intends for advertising to be the funding source for as much CASPA content as possible. "Our service starts with pay-per-view and free and from April it will be pay-per-view and advertising funded. That will be our unique selling point. When you invest in a TiVo and you invest in CASPA all access to on-demand will not be through your wallet, it will be through your relationship with the advertisers."

However, she added, "This will never be the case for movies because the studios are very clear about advertising around VoD, but there is a lot of interest from advertisers in getting their message across on a VoD platform."

Hybrid TV's ambitions for CASPA do not, however, extend to the PC screen. Minicola said "Our business model is not about delivering content to PCs  it's about driving content and services on the TV. All our content is high resolution, SD or in the future HD, with surround sound so we are focussing very much on delivering content through the television and controlling it through the TV remote. There are a lot of people playing around in the PC space. We believe the winning one will be the one that is free and is easiest to use."

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