EchoStar and Google Partner for TV advertising

Active-TV Ecosystem Developers,

The Issue: Google wants to expand is PC-based advertising role to include TV advertising.
Background: Google applies its PC advertising analysis skills, along with automation improvements to place conventional linear-TV advertising using current EchoStar STB infrastructure.
Behind the scene: active-TV technology uses new generation of networked TVs and STBs to deliver, more innovative and PC-like, TV-web in support nonlinear-TV advertising.

Google has a significant position in support of PC-web advertising. Recent announcements add to reports that it wants to expand its position to include TV advertising (a $60B per year business).

Through web access information, cookies and other browser provided information; Google can help place PC-web adverts that are relevant to the PC user. Like all browsing information, the adverts are delivered over the PC’s internet connection. The Set-Top Box and advanced TV market is entering the initial adoption phase for the networked enabled STB and TV. Consequently, Google can not yet use IP networking to deliver TV adverts to an existing and large TV audience.

EchoStar is marketed as Dish Network in the US and has 13.1M satellite subscribers. (The press release linked below, also indicates Google are collaborating with some smaller cable TV operators.) The Google press release states “Advances in set-top-box technologies make it possible to report aggregate statistics on how many times an ad was viewed and whether it was watched through to the end.”
The return path for a satellite STB is normally the telephone. Typically, late at night the STB will dial a reporting center and transfer information about its daily activity. This information will be passed by EchoStar to Google in what is described at “aggregate, anonymized set-top-box metrics”.

Google inserts adverts into the broadcast stream. This is conventional linear TV advertising. Likely using PC-web back-end advertising support technology Google already has in place, and access to return-path data, Google will “automate” the process of inserting linear TV adverts. The objective is to make adverts more relevant to the target TV viewers. Google’s experience in analyzing PC-web behavior may help in analyzing TV viewer behavior.

There is no push-red style TV interactivity indicated in the current press release. A STB supported by more advanced middleware such as from http://www.emusetechnologies.com/ or the like, would enable Google to support more advanced form is TV advertising.

Active-TV collaborators have used the IP path to support new forms of TV advertising. Red Bee Media (BBC Broadcasting spin-off) has publicly demonstrated push-red style interactive advertising using overlay TV-web, an active-TV technology. At last November’s BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) award ceremony, Red Bee won Best Use of Interactive Television for their Boots Christmas i-ad.

With active-TV technology, TV advertising is not in the linear broadcast stream, but supplied over the internet. However, the advertising can be synchronized to the broadcast TV schedule. A push-red style semitransparent TV-web image is overlaid on the broadcast image. User interactivity normally results in video redirection to an IP delivered TV-web channel stream which contains the advertising material.

The active-TV technology approach to TV advertising significantly differs from the current EchoStar-Google approach in that it does not require advert insertion into the linear broadcast stream. However, it does require adoption of a networked TV or a networked STB. Use of the IP path rather than the broadcast path for advertising support, does result in a more open approach. Those wishing to play a role in TV advertising can find it hard to make deals with closed STB service providers.

The relative openness of PC-web and TV-web technology, is better suited to supporting competition among advertising suppliers. In the retail STB and advanced TV market, purchasers are interested in free-to-air broadcast shows and, increasingly, access to free video sharing or other interesting TV-web channels. The role of the search-engine may remain a PC-web activity and not TV-web, as there is little interest in having a keyboard attached to a TV. It is more convenient to use, as necessary, a laptop PC in the same room as the TV. This may diminish the role of the search-engine in support of TV advertising. However, combining analysis of PC-web and TV-web activity may be the most powerful tool in making TV advertising more relevant.

Feedback, corrections and comments welcome.
Daniel Mann

EchoStar and Google Partner on New TV Advertising System http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/echostar.html

Google Announces TV Ads Trial http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/tv_ads_trial.html