Happy New Year! Welcome back to Issue 43 of Rerun, your weekly digest of digital storytelling, interactive media and the future of TV curated by Axonista.
This week's Top Pick is our review of the major industry trends emerging from 2015, and our predictions for 2016, compiled by Rerun Editor and Axonista Creative Director Ian Goode.
We also look at announcements and product launches from CES, the TV market in Africa, The Martian VR experience, and a puddle in Newcastle that made the headlines this week !
Curious? Let's get straight to it!
Top Pick
Rerun Rewinds: 2015
We take a look back at some of the top TV industry trends in 2015 and look ahead to what 2016 has in store.
It was a year of the broadcast industry getting their content onto as many screens and platforms as possible. This year, we predict the focus will be on making the best possible TV experience for the device and platform on which the viewer is watching. TV isn’t dying, but it’s mutating into something new, exciting, personal and interactive.
Future of TV
Can smart TV OEMs face down the streaming media player threat?
Smart TVs, it seems, haven't been smart enough. This article reviews some of the efforts by TV makers to make it easier for users to navigate between linear TV and steaming and to avoid switching inputs on the remote. Whether this will have any impact on the use of streaming devices is yet to be seen.
Yahoo shuts down Yahoo Screen
There's no doubt that more and more companies are taking their online video strategies very seriously. But it's clear that some are doing better than others. Both Time Inc. and Yahoo took a different route than Buzzfeed or Vox Media, in trying to pull consumers to their video portal rather than push video out to users. Yahoo had tried to enter the video portal game alongside Amazon and Netflix, picking up shows like Community and Saturday Night Live as well as some live NFL events. However, the recent announcement that Yahoo Screen has shut down, coupled with the news that Time Inc.'s The Daily Cut is failing to draw viewers, suggests that the more established corporations are finding it difficult to make their mark in an increasingly competitive market.
Media companies finally understand: The future of African TV is mobile
Over the past weeks and months, we've seen media companies such as Netflix and Ericsson make announcements about their move into markets beyond the US and Europe. Africa is one such market. Pay-TV services have grown, but the real area of growth is in mobile and there's a real push by VOD services to establish themselves as the first choice for African consumers. The article notes this will be to bring mobile VOD services to African countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, but outlines the challenging search for a way to do so, given the huge expense and inconsistent quality of mobile broadband services.
Virtual Reality
The Martian VR
With all of the excitement about Oculus this week and the expectation that the value of the VR industry will skyrocket over the next few years, it's perhaps worth looking what's underway in the world of storytelling. Now that there's a critical mass of industry interest in VR, the next move is to develop engaging stories and experiences. This story relates to 20th Century Fox's The Martian VR, a guided narrative with interactive tasks, just one of the interesting examples of where technology meets storytelling.
Briefs
- Netflix now available around the world
- Roku plans for continued Roku TV expansion
- CES 2016 - Lifestream Movi
- CES 2016 - CAST, watching entertainment together
20,000 people are watching this puddle on Periscope
20,000 people watched people navigate a large puddle in Newcastle via Periscope on Wednesday afternoon. Some passers by jumped over it, some gingerly went around the side, and some just plodded straight through. There were shenanigans with an inflatable lilo, a 'caution, wet floor' sign, and even a surfboard. Slow TV meets user generated content at its best.