The television that is coming: a very entertaining window

Nereida López-Vidales

Journalist, sociologist, professor of ICTs and advisor of audiovisual projects

The beginning of the century posed a strong commitment to new communication and information technologies that has meant a notable advantage for television as it has become the great protagonist of the Spanish audiovisual panorama and in part also European. Along with it, mobile telephony, new digital storage and reproduction media, the portability of technology and a convergence of services to increase competitiveness among companies represent the most significant changes in a scenario where users, customers, operators and professionals modify their modes of behaviour and business models.

To talk about the 21st century is also to talk about the accommodation of the Internet in the work and home spheres, video game consoles, digital production for video, blogs, paperless newspapers, videoconferencing and books with virtual pages. It is, without a doubt, the century of communication without wires, without borders, where space and time are increasingly relative concepts and where entertainment floods important aspects of work, personal and social relationships.

Reflection on new content, transformations in production, the tastes of younger audiences, "express" formats based on games, virtual journalists or interactivity are the major issues that concern media communication today, fundamentally, because the quality of information will depend to a large extent on its correct interpretation or development, as the case may be. journalistic, moral and social of the multimedia communication of the future. "These are exciting times for information and also for disinformation... The widespread use of the Internet has allowed a new and powerful channel of information that, not infrequently, fails to comply with the duty to offer truthful and contrasted information." (Javier Rojo, 28/10/2007).

All with DTT...

2005 represents the year of the definitive impulse for the introduction of DTT in Spain. Only from February to July was the Bill of urgent measures for the promotion of digital terrestrial television sent to Congress, after which the commission for the transition to DTT and the Digital Television Forum were created, Law 10/2005, of 14 June, was published in the Official State Gazette. the Council of Ministers approves the Audiovisual Sector Reform Plan, the Telecommunications Advisory Council is created and finally the National Technical Plan for DTT is approved, which once again delays the date of the analogue switch-off until the date currently established, 3 April 2010. The allocation of channels from 2005 to 2010 in the multiplexes of national coverage without disconnections, which leaves free the defunct Quiero TV (channels 66, 67, 68 and 69) goes to Antena 3, with 3 channels, which shares a band with the new television La Sexta in '69; another 3 for Telecinco, in 68, and NET TV; 3 for Sogecable in '67, and in this one another channel for La Sexta; finally, in 1966 RTVE got space, with one channel, VEO TV with two, and NET TV with another. In addition, as a result of its status as a public service, and as already marked by the PTNTDT of 98, the State Administration reserves 4 more channels for RTVE in the multiplex with the capacity for regional disconnections.

The situation at the end of the transition period as of April 3, 2010, would remain, in the channels that the State will assign avoiding damage to users, as follows: without the capacity for regional disconnections, La Sexta would have 4 channels, as would VEO TV, NET TV, Tele 5, Sogecable, Antena 3 and RTVE; with disconnection capacity, RTVE will have another 4 channels.

The attributions for private operators during the transition period are: Antena 3, Sogecable and Tele 5, a digital program for simulcast and two additional programs for the promotion of DTT; NET TV and VEO TV a digital program plus an additional one for the promotion of DTT; and for La Sexta a simulcast program and an additional one.

A total of 2,000 broadcasting centres will ensure 98% coverage of DTT in the national territory at the time of the blackout. The phases for the analogue switch-off were approved by the Council of Ministers at its meeting on 7 September 2007. The text of the National Plan for the Transition to DTT highlights that a third of the inhabitants, 32.4%, will be able to watch only digital terrestrial television by the end of 2009, since the blackout will have occurred in those areas.

To carry out the cessation of analogue emissions in 2010 in a "reasonable" way, the Government has established 73 technical areas that involve ninety transition projects, each of them with a date for the switch-off. The calendar for each technical project has been drawn up by determining three general groups depending on the number of inhabitants of the respective technical areas, so that the large Spanish cities will be in charge of launching DTT. The first phase will be, in general, for those Transition Projects (until June 30, 2009) whose population does not exceed 500,000 inhabitants. The second phase, with a deadline of 31 December 2009, for projects with an intermediate population (between 500,000 and 700,000 inhabitants), and the third phase, which ends on 3 April 2010, is the most important and will affect 67.6% of the population living in the most populated areas.

Digital television, in all its versions, is here to stay because, soon, there will be no other way to watch free and open television, whether general or thematic, national, regional or local, public or private. However, for Digital Terrestrial Television to be a real reality by 2010, two undoubted premises are necessary: on the one hand, the generalization of the number of decoders in homes (today insufficient even for the reception of the local digital television signal whose date of technological convergence is prior to 2010), and on the other hand, an effort by the networks to include new features in television programming that include interactive services.

Reinventing content

The general agreement of experts, programmers, technicians, broadcasters and operators is that it will be the content that will make the difference between the different channels in the future. The more than 40 digital television channels that will broadcast their signal from April 2010 onwards need diversified, specialised and different content production to compete for a share of the screen that will progressively decline at the rate of appearance of the new public and private channels. The free-to-air multichannel offer that will be implemented after the analogue switch-off will substantially modify the current television market, affecting the distribution of advertising, and therefore the financing of the channels, audiences and programmatic content. In addition to undoubted changes in the formats, there will be a process of deconcentration in order to compete for the leadership of large audiences in a scenario in which competition will be "in crescendo".

According to all forecasts, the large channels will try to retain a high level of audience through this type of content, while they will produce other more specific ones such as sports, documentaries, series, children's programs, etc., to complete a thematic offer aimed at specific groups of the population: women, children, the elderly, etc. The important communication groups will thus compete in the national market for large audiences with generalist content to obtain leadership, and at the same time they will broadcast a thematic offer aimed at target audiences, where the important thing will be to compete with no other aspirations than to remain at 1% or 2%.

The audience that is missing out on television the most is a young segment between 14 and 25 years old. This phenomenon has already been noticed in the United States and recently in other European countries such as the United Kingdom. In all cases, from being one of the segments of the population that have seen the small screen the most in previous decades (they accounted for up to 20% in 1995, for example), young people have become the ones who have seen the least, even below the child audience (approximately 6% in the surrounding countries and the US). The reasons are obvious; your choice, the Internet. The preferences of young people today focus on on-demand content, videos on the Internet, music downloads on the Mp3, chats on the PC and everything that "fits" on a mobile phone: television series, games, email,...

Television also becomes mobile and is watched on the Internet. It is the Net in the media and the media on the Net, turning communication into an active, interactive process, more in line with current demands. Young people today interpret their leisure time in terms of video games, instant messaging, file sharing of all kinds and the Internet. Information takes a back seat to entertainment and gaming. Sales of the Wii interactive console alone from April to September 2007 have provided 13,000 million euros to Nintendo, which offers a close idea of what the young sector likes most to spend their leisure time. Entertainment and games will therefore be the spearheads of future audiovisual production in all media, especially digital television, which will enable feedback from the sofa at home using the telephone terminal as a return channel, among others.

The new generations of viewers are users and customers of the media. They demand content and pay for it, either through the telephone rate or per product. They opt for "express" and à la carte content that prevents them from carrying out other tasks in parallel or at the same time and that allows them not only to choose, but also to intervene. To do this, in addition to technology, it is clear that production companies will have to equip themselves with talented teams to reinvent entertainment genres in some way, without forgetting the context of opportunity...

At the present time when comedy series, made up of short and timeless sketches, are triumphing among audiences of all ages, producers take into account the moment of zapping that precedes the prime time offer; it is what Eduardo García Matilla, president of Corporación Multimedia, calls "programming engineering": while the competition broadcasts the block of sports, weather or advertising, a unique entertainment product is launched on the grid at that time. These short, agile and non-continuous contents like the format of the series, increasingly resemble comics, and mix tenderness, irony, sarcasm and everyday situations with which it is easy to identify from the other side of the screen. "There is too much dramatization about the influence of television on public values and morals... (these programs) leave no trace... the citizen sees life through life, not through what comes to him from the television screen" (T. Baragaño). The search for the future audience begins in schools: more than 30% of the five and a half million viewers who follow the Marriage Scenes every day are between 4 and 12 years old...

And when the blackout ends, what?

The already recognized image and sound quality of the new television signal will be accompanied by another series of more than probable realities: the dispersion of audiences, the concentration of multimedia groups, important changes in advertising, new ways of doing journalism and the disconcerting digital canon.

Today's viewer already prefers an offer from many channels through a distribution platform. One of the most important consequences of the generalization of this offer, which is accompanied by the concentration of communication groups, operators, distributors and content generators, will be that the audience may end up not differentiating the channel they are watching: they will appreciate their favorite series but will not know on which channel they watch it. This means that the association of the product with the brand (television channel) can be lost, so the competition will jump into the field of differentiating content in programming and the protection of the corporate image.

The implementation of digital television favours the growth of the number of channels, especially at the local and regional levels. To the initial euphoria that awakens in the user to be able to have an exponentially multiplied offer, we must contrast the obviousness of time and space: a viewer cannot watch several programs at the same time or be loyal to a channel to fatten his share; The impediment is not technological, it is attentional and is affected by distraction. Both issues can cause the user to hate to constantly change the channel, to convulsively record programs that they will not see later and that in short, watching television is no longer as pleasant and carefree an exercise as it has been until now. But there is more.

The specialists in charge of the implementation of the new forms of television are pessimistic about a possible scenario of business stability. In the opinion of some of them, it is likely that even some channels will disappear. The most expected thing is the definitive change in content. The new formats, many of them over IP, must be multi-media. The interactivity and self-programming of television (on-demand television) is being introduced by the Personal Video Recorders or PVRs that have already begun to be installed in Europe. The large production companies have looked at the American model, where the production company sells the product to a television channel but leaves open other marketing channels with another pay channel, another regional channel, etc.

And we must not forget that the role of public television here is fundamental. They are committed to introducing free interactive applications so that citizens can access the Administration; It also has commitments to offer subtitling, dual sound, self-description,...

The full text of The television that is coming: a very entertaining window, by Nereida López Vidales, is available in the book Media, Technology & Entertainment: A Connected Future (Ed. Laertes)

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