Interview with Jonathan Sykes, Managing Director of Content Strategy for Tiscali TV

Tiscali TV offers up to 80 broadcast channels, including Freeview and subscription channels such as Sky One, Sky Movies and Sky Sports, as well as a large library of on-demand content.  The service recently achieved nationwide availability, with over 10mn households now capable of receiving Tiscali TV.

ipTV News: When was Tiscali TV launched?

Tiscali TV started off as an IPTV video on demand business in the London area under the guise of Homechoice.  It was a very cutting edge service for its time, and the business was purchased last year by Tiscali.  The main point is that it offers a seamless integration of broadcast television and video on demand, with the objective of offering customers what they want to watch, when they want.

What are the advantages of IPTV for consumers compared to other pay TV platforms such as cable?

Well if you take the movie genre for example, for film fans we can offer Sky Movies, plus our PictureBox service, which offers a choice of new movies on-demand, and more are being added all the time.  We aim to offer customers a new release as soon as it enters the pay per view window, and currently have over 1,000 movies on-demand.  So the strength of IPTV is that it offers breadth of choice – you can get a lot more of what you want, when you want, with IPTV.

For music fans you can choose your own music videos and create your own playlist, or even your own TV channel, which is a very powerful thing to do with music.  Also we can use viewer choices to inform of what other people are watching, suggesting new music that they perhaps might not have heard of yet.

We also have a children’s TV channel called Scamp, which has no adverts and uses a video-based electronic programme guide (EPG) to allow children to change between Postman Pat episodes, for example, by themselves, in an easy and fun-to-use format.

Watch this space as we’re going to be producing a lot more video EPGs – we aim to be very innovative in how we show consumers what is available.  And for the recommendation of new content, we seek to blend editorial suggestions with technology-based recommendations, to make the user-experience the best available.

How do you plan to expand the service in the future?

National rollout is important to us – we wanted to offer as many people the service as possible, and also it is difficult to cohesively advertise and market the service with only a regional footprint.  We’re launching new services all the time for Tiscali TV, and work is never ending on the functionality side - the important thing is that we look at what consumers want.

The choices are now a lot greater for TV viewers – we believe we can now offer ‘smart TV’, by offering great TV in a fun, easy and convenient way.

How do you see the UK’s IPTV market developing compared to the rest of Europe?

You have to remember that the UK is a very different market to other European countries: we have two broadcasting colossuses here, the BBC and Sky, both of which are fairly excellent at what they do.  Every other TV provider is seeking to establish and sustain themselves in an ever-changing landscape.

There is a buoyant and exciting market in the UK however, and as long as we maintain to be innovative and consumer-centric, we will do well.