English Entertainment
Screenz joins hands with Google to revolutionise TV viewing experience
MUMBAI: Screenz has announced its collaboration with Google to host the Screenz Real Time Platform, a global, live, interactive infrastructure for television shows enabling broadcasters and format owners to transform programs into live events.
The first show to use Screenz Real Time Platform is ‘Rising Star’– Keshet International’s hit TV show that first aired in Israel in September 2013, and will be launched in over 25 countries around the world including on ABC in the US on 22 June.
‘Rising Star’ is a trailblazing interactive TV format that marks a new era in home entertainment. The show enables real-time voting by viewers from their sofas via an innovative mobile app, fully integrated to the program. It is the first talent show where the viewer is the judge from start to finish. The show features performers making their debut on stage alone, from behind a giant wall of TV screens. They can only make their entry to the studio round by securing more than 70 per cent of the viewers’, judges’ and live audiences’ vote. The audience can see the results of their vote in real time and if they vote positively, have a chance that their picture will be shown on the giant wall. If a contestant achieves 70 per cent of the votes, the wall dramatically lifts revealing the studio audience and expert panel.
The collaboration between Screenz and Google delivers the scale to process a huge number of interactions per second and has been successfully employed so far to support the show in Brazil, Portugal and Israel. In testing the Real Time Platform processed a remarkable 100 million interactions per minute.
Screenz is working with broadcasters and TV production companies worldwide to leverage its unique Real Time Platform to create and support innovative new formats. The proven benefit of the Platform for broadcasters is the way it hikes up the level of engagement a viewer has with a show at the exact time when it is aired. The system also enables sophisticated audience targeting allowing broadcasters and brands to effectively identify viewer demographics and interests.
“Broadcasters and producers are constantly looking to introduce new formats which enable them to engage directly with TV audiences. By working with the Google Cloud Platform, Screenz will empower them to rip up the rule book and combine compelling live content with real time viewer interaction” said Screenz CEO Eli Uzan.
Google Cloud Platform director Daniel Powers said, “Screenz is at the forefront of a revolution which is changing the way we watch television. We are delighted that they have chosen to build their game-changing products on Google Cloud Platform. Our job is to make sure that the technology behind the Real Time Platform works effortlessly so that all viewers need to worry about is which way they are going to vote.”
Keshet International general manager production Granit Noham added, “We are very pleased that our partner Screenz is collaborating with the digital prowess of Google Cloud Platform to provide a robust platform and safe pair of hands for each and every international version of ‘Rising Star’.”
Screenz’s Real Time Platform utilises Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Storage and Google BigQuery, which are part of Google Cloud Platform. The application is deployed globally on Google’s cloud infrastructure, to provide scalability and robustness. The needs of the local broadcaster and audience will always be met, even if multiple countries are broadcasting the live show simultaneously. By utilising BigQuery, Screenz is able to provide broadcasters with the ability to analyze the large amounts of data collected.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
