What a future connected Red Button service might look like

I'm Daniel Danker, General Manager of On Demand at the BBC, and today I spoke at the Future of Broadcasting conference on integrating online and traditional TV, focusing on our vision for Red Button.

Thirteen years ago this week, the BBC launched the first interactive experience for Wimbledon audiences via the Red Button. While watching Wimbledon, audiences could choose their court, monitor the scores in detail, and play along with an interactive quiz. A million people accessed this in 1999. Just two years later this figure was four million - fully 44% of our audience who tuned in played along.

Wimbledon helped us define what Red Button could deliver to our audiences. Since that launch thirteen years ago, Red Button has gone from success to success, with a third of the population of the UK pressing Red on a weekly basis.

Each month, Red Button reaches a third of the population of the UK. While watching TV, users simply press the Red button on their remote and get quick and easy access to news headlines, sports scores, and the weather. While new forms of interactivity have popped up around TV and struggled to really become an inherent part of how people watch telly, the Red Button has been a quiet hero in the world of companion experiences. It has brought simple, elegant interactivity to television for over a decade.

The BBC is committed to delivering quality programming - the challenge and opportunity of Red Button is in figuring out how we can add even greater value to that content for audiences, right on the TV. A prime example developed last year was the Maestro Cam, which enabled Proms fans to see the concert from the perspective of the conductor.

One of our more surprising experiments has been to see if Red Button could make radio services richer on TV. With the Red Button, audiences have had the opportunity to watch the Radio 1 studios live, and get up close and person with live music sessions on Radio 2. This is a great way for me and my team to experiment with transforming the way audiences think about the radio experience and what it can offer them visually as well as aurally.

Maestro Cam

Red Button reborn

Yet Red Button has its limitations. Because it relies entirely on broadcast technologies, Red Button competes with other channels for spectrum. This is a scarce resource. So scarce, in fact, that this year we've seen a phased reduction of broadcast Red Button services, as part of our Delivering Quality First strategy.

This presents us with an opportunity to give Red Button a new lease of life, taking advantage of new web-based technologies that deliver richer, more visually-enticing experiences. And today at the conference I outlined our ambition to connect the very best of traditional Red Button with the breadth and depth of BBC Online.

This new "Connected" Red Button will become the foundation for interactivity around the BBC's television channels on the TV, and I believe that it will set the benchmark for seamlessly bringing broadcast television together with the internet.

Making great TV even better

This isn't about browsing the web, ordering a pizza, or doing your banking on your TV; nor is about pouring all of BBC Online into the TV experience.

It's about making great TV even better. How will it do this?

Imagine you're watching Eastenders and realise you missed the previous episode. Press Red and instantly bring up iPlayer to catch up on the episode you missed.

Or you're watching a cooking programme and you see a recipe you'd like to try. Press Red, save it for later and access the recipe on your computer, tablet or mobile when you're ready to cook.

With a wealth of content at our fingertips, Connected Red Button seamlessly brings together broadcast and online television. Audiences will be able to experience this first-hand during the Olympics, where they'll be able to watch 24 live channels, in HD, available exclusively online but delivered to the TV in a way that blends the media and makes the technology truly invisible.

We'll be exploring ways we can extend these experiences to mobile and tablet devices also, with our upcoming companion screen experience for Antiques Roadshow being a good example of what's possible. And we're looking beyond the tech-savvy to ensure simplicity and ease of use is at the heart of everything we do. The Antiques Roadshow pilot is very much a mainstream experience, built around a mainstream programme, extended and made better through participation and interactivity.

Reinventing Red Button

Red Button might have started simplistically as a way for the BBC to provide audiences with instant, highly relevant information right on the TV. And what a success it's been, still continuing its impressive growth over a decade after it was first unveiled. But while some might have expected Red Button to slowly be replaced with the web across an assortment of devices, no one would deny that the simplicity and ease of Red Button is as important today as when it was first introduced.

So rather than anticipate a transition away from Red Button, at the BBC we're bringing the very best of Red Button together with the very best of BBC Online, to reinvent the experience on any screen.

This is our vision for the future, and I hope to build on this in more detail later in the year. Until then, do leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Daniel Danker is General Manager, Programmes & On-Demand

N.B. image and caption at top of post changed at 13.55 p.m. Wednesday 27th June

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Today, I spoke at the Digital TV Group (DTG) Summit in London. For those who don’t know, the DTG is the industry association for digital television in the UK, so I was keen to share my thoughts with them about how “Connected” or “Smart” TVs fit with our strategy, their huge potential in the future, but also the real need to improve today’s audience experience on these devices.

The aim of my presentation was to convince the group that if connected TV is going to be successful with mainstream audiences, using a connected TV needs to be no more complicated than channel flipping. And I firmly believe that this is achievable; that there’s no reason connected TV can’t be that simple to use.

People buy TVs first and foremost so they can watch great programmes, so connected TV experiences need to focus on making those experiences better. With 98% of BBC viewing time spent on linear television, it follows that connected TV experiences should start with broadcast TV.

We’re seeing huge growth of BBC iPlayer on Connected TVs – not surprising as TV is of course best on TV. But at the moment iPlayer gets four times as much traffic on the Apple iPad alone, despite the fact there are more than twice as many connected TVs as iPads in the UK .

We know there’s an appetite out there for Connected TVs. In the last year, iPlayer on the PC grew by 14%. On the tablet, iPlayer grew an impressive 580%. But on the TV, iPlayer grew more than 10-fold.

It’s early days, and there’s far more we can do to make connected TV deliver the fullness of its potential to our audiences, but the trend is inspiring.

Today when we change channels we don’t think about the technology that lies beneath. But when we use a connected TV, we do. For connected TV to truly delight audiences in the future – to build on the last year’s impressive growth – using a connected TV needs to be dead simple. To delight audiences with what connected TV makes possible, we need to make the technology disappear.

That’s one reason why Red Button services are so successful. Their simplicity is no accident; it follows years of experimentation.

In a connected world, the Red Button can transform into an effortless way to bring what we traditionally think of as Internet services directly to our audience, right on the TV. Users need not even realise that behind the scenes, they’ve switched between broadcast and broadband technologies.

And this is great news for the roughly 25% of Red Button users who don’t use the BBC’s online services.

Simply tune into any BBC channel, press Red, and immerse yourself in enhancements around the programme you’re watching. It will be joined up with broadcast TV, not separate from it. It will combine the breadth of our online content with the simplicity of television.

If you’re interested in more from me, you can watch my presentation (above). As always, keen to hear your thoughts.

Daniel Danker is General Manager, Programmes & On-Demand

Daniel Danker is the General Manager, Programmes and On-Demand, BBC Future Media

28 million people in UK don't use iplayer but could. Massive #MissedOpportunity #BBCOnline

The Fast Web Media twitter account summed the presentation up as:

Daniel Danker states all BBC digital innovation needs to be 'dead simple' for users to be successful #BBCOnline #MediaCityUK

Vikram Rajan of Cognizant tweeted that:

#bbconline goals of TV manufacturers seem to diverge a bit when it comes to connected sets

Within the BBC, Robin Morley (who had demonstrated Moo Spew in the Children's product update) liked the idea of an Electronic Programme Guide that tied in with on-demand:

Best thought floated so far in "sinplicity" discussion between 3 TV manufacturers - an EPG which also goes backwards for catch-up #bbconline

And Phil Buckley (who blogged the Children's Product Update) pointed to a different kind of connected TV:

Loving the tv manufacturers talk. But no discussion of use cases around games consoles? #bbconline

Daniel described how changes in audience and technology are affecting online video, and how the BBC will respond. For example, on-demand viewing usually peaks at the end of the day, when viewers catch up on shows they missed. But BBC iPlayer is used on tablet devices a the same times of day as live viewing - as if tablets are becoming personal TVs.

He took questions from:

• Robert Morgan from Magic Lantern on the Wii U
• Owen Wallis from Less Rain asking if the BBC will release the iPlayer client for others to use
• Neil Robinson of IPC about how indies could sell the same content to BBC Online and syndicate it to other publishers (eg abroad)
• Chris Jackson of Metabroadcast on sharing metadata with ITV and C4
• Andrew Bairds of Testronic about the timescale for this evolution

Daniel Danker is General Manager, Programmes and On Demand.

BBC iPlayer app on an iPad

Having stuck our toe in the water last year with the iPad (initially, we quickly repurposed our big screen version), this new native app is a significant improvement on the existing experience and it's great to be on the Android platform too. Our intention is to be on as many devices and platforms as possible.

Here are the key features on Android and iPad:

• Watch live TV and listen to radio (not previously widely available on mobile devices)
• Access the BBC's full catalogue of catch-up programmes; seven-days' TV and radio on demand as well as series stacking (as you get on the web)
• A simple and intuitive design with high picture quality and personalised favourites (making the most of the touch-screen UI, and a popular feature on the website)

For iPad it's straightforward, but for technical reasons we can't bring the app to every single Android device. To download and use the app you'll need a device that uses Android version 2.2 and has Adobe Flash 10.1 Player installed. Our Flash streams need a powerful mobile phone processor and a Wi-Fi connection to ensure a smooth viewing experience, which means that only newer, more powerful Android 2.2 devices connected via Wi-Fi can support the Flash 10.1 streaming experience.

If you have an older version of the Android platform, you may be able to upgrade, so please check with your device manufacturer and/or mobile network provider for information about Android system updates. We'll make an official announcement when the apps are live, but we will be interested in any feedback.

Daniel Danker is the General Manager of Future Media & Technology

Yesterday we announced the next phase of Putting Quality First. As part of that announcement, we made the first mention of our upcoming 'Radio and Music product', which created a bit of confusion about our plans for online radio: I hope this post explains in a little more detail.

Yes, we do plan to build a new product for radio but this isn't to cut corners, or downplay what we do for radio online - as with everything we announced yesterday it's because we want to make the service better, not worse. In the case of radio and music, we think this means giving radio its own home.

Radio first became part of BBC iPlayer in 2008 because the BBC iPlayer brand was growing, so it made it easier for audiences, and there were benefits from bringing TV and radio closer together. It's not the only way of listening to BBC Radio online and you can access podcasts through the separate podcast website and also stream live through the network sites. We think this can be made simpler.

The majority of radio listening comes through the radio station web sites rather than iPlayer. At its heart, iPlayer is a product built for TV and audiences have different needs from TV and radio on the web. For instance, in BBC iPlayer nearly 90% of TV requests are for catch-up, whereas radio requests are around 70% live. Hence our decision to build a new product for radio and music that builds in podcasts and plays to the strengths of live radio.

The teams in Audio and Music and Future Media are working together to shape the product. We've not yet fully decided what it will look like, but broadly speaking, here's what we want the product to do:

• Better bring out the personality of the networks, presenters and DJs
• Rich pages for our flagship programmes (e.g. The Today Programme, The Archers)
• Integrate music events
• Be highly personalised and available on lots of internet-connected devices (people want radio on the move)
• Be highly social; pulling in the buzz around live radio
• Become a home for podcasts (both 'catch-up' and 'archive' content), as well as improve the way we offer clips
• Make better use of technology to improve exploration, discovery, sharing, and listening
• Create a new design especially for radio and music
• Link up closely with the TV & iPlayer product (but not duplicate it), sharing links

Also, as we said yesterday, there are things it won't do. It won't offer track-by track streaming or aggregate third party stations, which brings me onto Radioplayer.

Though the BBC have been the technical architects in this project, it's a partnership. With our partners Global, GMG Radio, Absolute and the RadioCentre we want to bring all UK radio together in one place, and any Ofcom-licensed station can be involved. With listeners able to search by genre, presenter, programme and locality, audiences can discover new programmes and stations, and make use of other features. This has been running in beta for a while now, is looking great, and we expect it to launch very soon.

Though we've not yet worked the details through, we think both projects add up to a vastly improved online radio experience for audiences and hope to share more details soon.

UPDATE: In response to the queries in several comments below. Existing iPlayer/BBC website features including 7 day catch up, live streaming, podcast, clips, selected archive and availability on other devices will remain and be fully integrated into the new product/player.

Daniel Danker is General Manager, Programmes and On Demand, BBC Future Media & Technology

• Detail about the strategy review and the cuts to BBC Online in blog posts from Director of FM&T Erik Huggers and from head of BBC Sport Online Ben Gallop plus two posts from Managing Editor, BBC Online, Ian Hunter, one about social media and one about cutting the number of BBC web sites.
• iPlayer's audience figures are published monthly on the BBC Internet blog.
• Radioplayer has its own web site where you can learn more about the project from Managing Director Mike Hill.
• The Putting Quality First web site has background on the earlier stages of the exercise.

We're really grateful for your feedback and will continue to incorporate your thoughts into product improvements.

Daniel Danker is General Manager, Programmes and On Demand, BBC Future Media & Technology

This past weekend, I appeared on Points of View to respond to audience reactions to the latest version of BBC iPlayer, which launched in September. I wanted to take this opportunity to share a bit more about the thinking that went into the product, the research done by the team during development and testing, what we've learned since launch, and our next steps.

We set out to build this release with several goals:

To reduce the time it takes audiences to find programmes they want to watch

To make it easier to discover media in a huge and growing content library

To create a more personalized experience

We evaluate feedback in a number of ways, and a four-month live beta phase helped us bridge the gap between the way we thought you would use the product and how you actually used it in real life. As James Hewines discussed in his blog ahead of the launch, nearly 10% of you participated in the beta, providing a tremendous amount of feedback on how the product worked in the real world. This included your thoughts on the user interface and functionality, as well as reports of bugs for our engineers to resolve.

More streams, fewer clicks

As we iron out the post-launch issues, there's plenty of good news to share. Usage is up and radio consumption is growing particularly fast. Audiences are finding programmes with 20% fewer clicks than before, which is a really great result. The new personalisation features are also proving very popular. with 14 million of you tagging 'favourite' programmes 14 million shows tagged as a 'favourite' programme in just one month. Audiences have selected a programme as a 'favourite' 3 million times in the first month.

You may have also seen the data in the BBC iPlayer performance pack for September, the first statistics since we launched the new look. BBC iPlayer had a total of 114 million programme plays for the month, but the real success story was the week-by-week increase. The last week in September saw 24 million programmes played across TV and radio - the most in a single week since May. The growth has continued in October, where each week has been stronger than the last.

Your feedback

While I'm really encouraged by these early figures, there were a number of places where we didn't get it quite right. Since our full-scale launch on September 6, we have received feedback in the form of blog posts, comments, and emails to our support and contact teams, all of which we review constantly. A weekly report is sent directly to our editorial and product teams to summarize the latest concerns. It's an incredibly useful feedback loop that helps us determine whether big product launches - as well as smaller changes and refinements - are pleasing audiences.

Despite the positives, there were three main things you didn't like:

1. Downloaded programmes disappearing when using iPlayer Desktop

2. Complaints about the loss of A-Z navigation to titles

3. Difficulty finding the last programme watched or listened to

We've heard your feedback, and are making changes in response. We've already reinstated the TV pop-out console; it can be activated using the icon found in the lower-right corner of the player. Next, to resume watching or listening to a programme from where you left off, open the "Favourites" drawer on the BBC iPlayer homepage. Finally, we're completing designs to bring back the A-Z feature.

We are working as quickly as possible to fix bugs that cause some downloaded programmes to disappear from iPlayer Desktop. On Friday, the team completed a patch release, which can be found on the BBC iPlayer Help site Paul Clark's blog post here. To be sure we've truly solved the problem, we'll be testing the fix over the next couple of weeks. Any feedback you provide during this time will be particularly helpful.

I wanted to thank all of you for submitting your thoughts, and hope you'll continue to do so. Please continue to come back here for more updates from the team.

Daniel Danker is General Manager for Programmes and On Demand, BBC Future Media & Technology

Editor's note: Unfortunately the previous statistic of 14 million favourites in paragraph five above was reported in error. This has now been corrected. The correct figures are underlined. My apologies.