Participation TV

Over the last 10 years, a vast number of “interactive TV” services have been introduced. Services as diverse as SMS voting and SMS chat shows, games packages on Set-Top Box networks, parallel publishing of alternative viewpoints and add-on material on digital TV, Web-TV services and more has been labeled “interactive TV”. These services are typically vertically integrated (thus lacking a general platform) and always conﬁned to one terminal/play-out technology only. Few satisfy the simple hallmark of interactivity: That the consumer interacts not only with her/himself, but with all the other consumers, individually and collectively. Above all, the media owners and advertisers have not been able to address and communicate individually with the personal consumer.

The never.no Interactivity Suite

never.no’s Interactivity Suite is the world’s ﬁrst platform for universal interactivity in broadcast media. The Interactivity Suite allows consumers to inﬂuence the broadcast in real time and to interact with each other and the world. It allows media owners and advertisers to track consumers from medium to medium, communicating individually with them and tailoring and optimizing each consumer’s content and sponsor environment through all media. The Interactivity Suite is used by broadcasters to integrate User Submitted Content (USC) in their programming, thus ”Youtubefying” their medium. It is also frequently used to run automated user-inﬂuenced dynamic broadcasting, meaning more exciting content at lower production cost. The Interactivity Suite is a clean technology layer interfacing in all directions through industry standard protocols. The system supports any format logic from simple SMS votes to highly complex and individualized applications with timelines spanning several years. The product is the basis for more than 2000 very diverse mobile consumer services, and is producing daily live TV broadcasts on 20 – 30 channels in Europe, North America, Middle East and Asia. The suite works with user interaction through channels such as SMS/MMS, WAP, web, e-mail and Windows Live Messenger, in addition to communicating with 3rd-party solutions like Set-Top Box middleware, 3G gateways, DTMF and IVR systems etc. The Interactivity Suite can process text, images, audio and video. Upon synchronous TV and radio broadcasting, it takes native control of graphics rendering systems from Vizrt or Harris, and of other play-out center equipment like keyers, video servers, digital audio servers etc. It may also provide a clean data feed, for easy integration with broadcast equipment which is not natively supported. For asynchronous broadcast, typically associated with online or mobile broadcast it controls user interfaces designed in Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight. The system also allows parallel publishing to blogs and other community websites.