MUMBAI: For consumers, the definition of television is changing. Television is coming out of the TV screen and entering into mobile, computer and other screens.

These were the thoughts presented by Intel Corporation futurist and director future casting and experience research Brian David Johnson.

Johnson was speaking at Ficci-Frames here before being in the panel on “TV delivery infrastructure for the future: Are we ready for it?”
  
Johnson said that the future of TV is all about experience. It has to be informative, ubiquitous, personal and social. He shared the data which said that by 2015, there will be over 500 billion hours of content, which can be received by 12-15 billion devices.

“TV will still remain in the people’s life. We all love TV,” Johnson quipped.

The other panellists were: Ericsson TV Solutions European and APac business development team VP Noel Matthews; Juch-Tech CEO Walt Juchniewicz; and Indusind Media and Communications (IMCL) director Ashok Mansukhani. Star CJ India CEO Paritosh Joshi moderated the session.
Taking the cue from Johnson, Matthews said that the future lies in multi-device and multi-consumption. “There will be many devices that people will use for media consumption. It is the service providers’ job to set up the infrastructure,” Matthews said. 
 
Are we ready for the digital future? Mansukhani said the cable industry is ready to invest for the future, provided there is clarity on regulation and guidelines. “We are ready to invest in the digital system but we need more clarity on the regulation front and the policy on revenue sharing,” he said.

Juchniewicz added that he has seen tremendous growth in India and cited the example of mobile. He said that his experience in India has been “so far impressive” but cautioned that “litigation issues” should be solved. He noted that in the emerging markets like India, the mobile device can become central where people don’t have access to TV.
Taking the mobile growth story of India further, Joshi added that there are more than 750 million mobile subscribers in India and it may lead to mobile TV becoming the primary delivery system. But he pointed out that on TV people may watch long format content, but on mobile the shorter version works.

Johnson said that the formats will co-exist. Both Johnson and Matthews were in accordance that same people have different consumption patterns while using different devices. Short format content will fit on mobile devices while television viewers will enjoy long format content.