The Oscars, Roku and the BBC - Revealing the future of TV

It's been another fast-paced week in the digital video and second screen industries.  While the OTT video world is still reeling from the previous week's announced Disney Movies Anywhere service (a serious threat to UltraViolet) and Marvel's announcement of an exclusive output deal with Netflix (continuing to threaten HBO), second screen took a shot in the arm from the Oscars, and Roku mounted an attack on Chromecast.  At a glance:

• "Watch ABC" did Second Screen for the Oscars "right"
• Ellen broke Twitter
• Roku announced their "streaming stick" device
• Dish struck a deal with Disney to delay commercial skips
• FreeWheel was acquired by Comcast
• The BBC announced the death of analog for it's Channel 3 service
• An Aereo lost its court battle in Salt Lake City and Denver

A Review of Google's Chromecast - Leveraging the Discovery and Control Powers of Second Screen

We have often discussed in this blog the 4 major features sets of second screen (To Control, To Discover, to Enhance, to Share - relevant research linked here and here).  We have also reviewed what Netflix was experimenting with for leveraging the 2nd Screen as a discovery and control device via DIAL (try opening Netflix on your iPhone while it is also running on your PS3, find the blog here).  Finally, we have predicted what a DIAL-enabled world might look like with its major backers (Netflix and YouTube) driving the protocol acceptance into every new device launch since early 2013 (DIAL blog here, 10 predictions here).

Well ChromeCast is the incarnate of all those opportunities and at the same time evidence of where the industry will head with rapid adoption.  While we have tried to tell the SmartTV industry that the best implementation for their platform is to be the launch pad for the stream, Chromecast demonstrates that use case out right.

Can second screen drive renewed growth in home entertainment?

On Tuesday, we will gather with industry peers to learn the latest developments and engage with thought leaders in a discussion around 2nd screen’s impact on how we interact with our home entertainment consumer.  To begin the dialogue we’d like to emphasize the opportunity Second Screen presents to you and your business to help revitalize the home entertainment industry by giving the consumers an experience that is worth buying (vs. renting or subscription).  We are also suggesting that we unite to create a visual marker that tells the consumer both the movie or TV title and the app will deliver an enhanced companion experience that promotes the proliferation of a 2nd screen ecosystem that is available to the consumer when they buy an UltraViolet enabled title digitally or on Blu-ray Disc.  The premium experience we collectively create is a reason to buy, helping to promote UltraViolet in the process and ensuring the success of a feature rich ecosystem with the distribution power of today's physical and digital retailers.

Netflix's DIAL and the Second Screen Ecosystem Battle

One things is certain about the second screen industry--it is rapidly developing.  As we have discussed at conferences, over cocktails, through dinners, and in this blog (recently including 2013 trends, the coming ecosystem war, and our comprehensive industry report), one of the biggest challenges to deploying a second screen app is to create consumer utility.  That means the consumer needs to find more reasons to pickup that second screen with your app than with other devices (eg Harmony One remote) or app options.  While there are a wide range of apps chasing Social and Stimulating feature sets for  companion second screen experiences, there are an equal number of players trying to solve Discovery and Simple control of the first screen.

The real challenge with this approach is getting the content to launch on the first screen.  If you are the Pay TV operator, controlling the first screen is "easy".  If you are the game console or CE device manufacturer, it's also "easy"--you own the protocols.  But if you are a third party app, trying to create consumer utility (and hence value) by allowing him/her to search across multiple video services and launch their chosen content to that service on the first screen--hard.  Today, most of them are becoming adept at launching the video content onto the second screen itself, deep linking into the Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, or Amazon Instant Video app directly, but only a few third parties have mastered multiple devices for the first screen (eg BuddyTV)--and most of them only work with Live TV.  Imagine the complexity in the living room: you have 5 different devices by now that have Netflix or Hulu installed, so even if you could talk to anyone of them, how do you launch the right device and get the main screen to switch to that device?

Enter Netflix and DIAL.