BBC Discusses Six-Month Roadmap for its Red-Button Interactive TV Service

In a posting last week on Press Red, a BBC blog that provides updates on the work of the corporation's TV Platforms group (i.e. the group responsible for the BBC's red-button service and for implementing the BBC iPlayer catch-up service on TV), the BBC's managing editor of TV platforms, John Denton, provided some information on the group's roadmap for the next six months, which, among other things, will see it working to adapt the red-button service to take advantage of the increasing popularity of broadband-connected televisions and set-tops (note: for more on the BBC's efforts to address the emergence of broadband-connected TV devices, see the article on Project Canvas, a joint initiative between the corporation, UK commercial broadcaster ITV, and UK incumbent telco BT, that was posted on itvt.com April 27th):

"This year will see more broadband-connected TVs and set-top boxes arrive on the market," Denton wrote. "With this potential technology change, a number of our team are concentrating on understanding what the creative, technical and user experience will be on these new devices and how this will shape BBC Red Button in the future. Initial work includes investigating delivery of video and audio via broadband onto TV screens. Transferring this experience to a TV screen where viewers' expectations are higher will be a real challenge. Some of our knowledge has come from delivering the award-winning BBC iPlayer on Virgin and this year has seen it launch series-stacking and BBC HD content as part of that offering. We'll also be added [sic] radio and an improved user interface in 2009. The BBC also has a huge amount of feed-generated content," Denton continued, "and we are working with teams across the BBC to explore what would work using broadband-connected devices. From a technical perspective, this requires us to ensure content is properly formatted and easily available, but also editorially we are looking at how the audience, you, can take more control of what BBC programming and information you want to see and how you may wish to control it. We've already done some internal prototypes in this area, using news and sport content and on the Electric Proms [note: for an example of these prototypes, see http://tinyurl.com/7o8ezp]. So what can our existing audiences expect to see in 2009? Well with broadband at forefront of mind, we are looking at how we can link to this content from our existing homepages. Each platform will see an update to the homepage beginning with Freesat which is one of the first platforms to explore broadband as a delivery mechanism."

Denton also mentioned that the BBC is planning to market its red-button service more aggressively and is attempting to find new ways to communicate red-button schedule information to viewers, as it is aware that "one of the biggest complaints is that we don't tell you enough about what's on the service."

In related news: The BBC recently added a "headline ticker" service to the top level of its red-button home page on the Sky satellite-TV and Freeview digital terrestrial platforms. Viewers on those platforms who press red while watching a BBC channel can now see the latest news, business, sports and entertainment headlines, as well as any weather warnings that have been issued, without navigating to the individual indexes. The service is similar to one that has been available on the Ceefax platform (which, as a result of the UK's digital switchover, is being superseded by the BBC's Digital Text service in a process scheduled to be complete by 2012) for some years now.