Future TV

Panelists: Peter Hirshberg (starling.tv), Ynon Kreiz (Endemol Group), Brian Sullivan (Sky Deutschland)
Moderator: Thomas Künstner (Booz & Co.)

"The ways video content is consumed online are changing significantly"

"People adapt their libraries according to their tastes"

"The market here is about 10 years behind the rest of the world"

"Our lifestyles don't fit prime time anymore"

This panel brings together two major players in traditional media and one startup based on the same ecosystem. Moderator Thomas Künstner helps us understand how these companies are trying to prepare for the future of TV, and the reality on the ground today in the face of the changes that the web has brought about.

Sullivan shares two experiences from yesterday that signify the change in media consumption. The first was in the morning: waking early, he found his very young daughter watching a TV show on his iPad. How she had learned how to do that he didn't know, but she was consuming that media channel by herself happily. The second experience was in the evening, when his son had a school assignment. His son, usually not particularly interested in doing schoolwork before going to bed. Again, his son was engaged in his school work like never before, doing research online and absorbing information online in a playful way. What Sullivan draws from this is that maybe we cannot even fathom what TV will look like in a few years, but he's excited to see what will happen.

As Ynon Kreiz points out, there is huge potential in the ecosystem around TV: If this ecosystem, with its existing relationships and the billions us dollars spent each year, really blooms online as well as on broadcast, the sky is the limit.

Peter Hirshberg tries to bring the social back to TV with his company Starling TV. He remarks that the relationships between producers, broadcasters and consumers are changing. More concretely, a younger generation already has adapted to ways of consuming video that seem unfamiliar to traditional broadcasters - think a media diet based on a fluid mix of Hulu, Netflix and iTunes.

The German market, says Sullivan, is about 10 years behind the rest of the world, even though the consumer behavior is basically the same as everywhere. Instead of worrying about anything cutting-edge, he stresses how important it is to get the basics right: Out of six million households that have paid money for TV at some point in the last five years, three million quit because they had such a "crappy experience". He's trying to make sure that these customers "get what they paid for".

How is social media changing TV? Hirshberg knows: social media drives traffic. Both worlds are very compatible, as sharing the experience of watching a show is inherently social. His service combines TV with social and gaming elements, driving up engagement with your social graph.

One thing is clear, though: The world of TV is going to change significantly over the next few years.