South Africa is a laggard in television broadcasting technology. One of the consequences of long delays in the migration to digital terrestrial television (DTT) is that broadcasters risk getting stuck in archaic business models that do make use of the internet to enrich the user experience.

Countries that have successfully completed their migration from analogue broadcasting standards onto DTT are now looking at the next level of broadcasting: making it possible for viewers to interact with broadcast content in real time.

Hybrid broadcasting broadband television, or HbbTV, is a broadcasting standard that integrates traditional linear broadcasting with the non-linear capabilities of the internet, allowing users to interact with broadcast content in new and interesting ways.

HbbTV is important to free-to-air broadcasters such as the SABC and e.tv parent eMedia because it allows them to expand their ad-revenue model in interesting ways. For example, the interleaving of broadcast with broadband allows the screen to the scale so that banner ads can occupy a portion of the viewable space for a set period when users change channels. Viewers can interact with ads, too, allowing them to register for a service using their TVs.

The success of broadcast advertising is mainly due to its ability to reach large audiences. The disadvantage of this is its one-size-fits-all approach lacks the customisation needed to compel specific segments of viewers or even individual users into taking action.

HbbTV is attractive to broadcasters because it gives them the opportunity to offer their advertising clients options that make it likelier that ad revenue will lead to a sale. For example, HbbTV’s internet protocol capabilities can be used to track whether viewers have seen a broadcast ad or not. If they have, banner advertising on all the user’s connected devices can be used to reinforce the brand’s message – all with personalised messaging.

Targeted content

HbbTV makes it possible to personalise traditional broadcast ads as well as banner ads, all using IP address information to localise content. A car vendor, for example, could include the name and address of the dealership closest to a user in their advertising – even offering contacts or a link for a test drive.

Broadcasters in Germany, Italy and other European countries have been experimenting with HbbTV for more than a decade with some interesting use cases coming to the fore. In one instance, a cooking programme distributed via broadcast was overlayed with an internet-based shopping application that viewers could use to buy the ingredients, cutlery and crockery seen on the show in real time.

The internet capabilities of HbbTV allow for the interaction to expand to devices other than TV. A viewer interested in a product or service seen on TV may want to continue their interaction via a mobile device such as a phone or tablet. In this case, a push notification can be sent from the TV to the device. HbbTV allows for push notifications in the other direction, too, meaning that broadcast content discovered online via mobile can be pushed onto the TV as well.

Read: 5G Broadcast: the technology that could kill DTT in South Africa

Broadcasters experimenting with HbbTV have been able to split the interaction between a TV and a mobile device in interesting ways. One use case exploits the higher bandwidth that internet services have when compared to broadcast. Using IP, the sound for a broadcast being watched on a TV can be streamed onto a mobile device in sync. This allows broadcasters to maximise broadcast bandwidth for the highest possible quality video output and use the higher IP bandwidth to offer more language options than the broadcast stream can handle.

This capability is also multicast, meaning viewers watching the same broadcast on a TV could use their mobile devices to listen to different language audio streams using their earphones.

HbbTV is an evolution of DTT. The HbbTV standard – written and maintained by the HbbTV Association – is now in its third iteration. The HbbTV Association was founded in 2010 and has television manufacturers, broadcasters, platform operators and technology companies as its members. Notable members include the BBC, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Google and MultiChoice subsidiary Irdeto.

HbbTV is compatible with DVB-2, the proposed DTT standard communications regulator Icasa intends broadcasters to use to propagate their digital signals. HbbTV is not compatible with analogue broadcasts still widely used in South Africa. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media