The Battle for Social TV’s Billions

The latest Futurescape report examines the emerging Social TV landscape and analyses how the battle over Social TV between social networks Facebook and Twitter, and other Internet companies such as Google TV, will permanently transform the TV market, as connected television arrives in our homes.

The report is the first critical appraisal of how the battle between the two major social networks over social TV is shaping twenty-first century television and challenging the TV industry.

The winner will take a dominant strategic position in socially-targeted TV advertising, pay-TV content recommendation, TV show marketing, next-generation EPGs and interactive viewing.

Key points of the report:

• Facebook aims to tap the $180bn worldwide TV ad market – Google TV and other connected TV systems will put Facebook and Twitter targeted ads on TV screens

• Global pay-TV, estimated at $250bn in 2014, needs social recommendation and discovery services because these encourage viewers to subscribe to more expensive packages and buy more video-on-demand – Facebook and Twitter are major social data providers

• Middleware and EPG providers similarly need social network data for recommendation and discovery – the European EPG market alone will be worth $555m by 2014

• Facebook and Twitter buzz affects TV ratings and the social networks know in real time how people react to TV programming – an essential supplement to Nielsen-type viewing data

James Grant Hay is a Social TV Strategist, he is currently working on a Social TV applications project with a major consumer electronics brand and is a listed developer with the TV App Marketplace in the Netherlands, EU.