Leuven.
Wendy van den Broeck is next at EuroITV 2009, and shifts our focus towards interactive digital TV (iDTV). Is such technology appropriated by consumers, and how? The transition of TV is a dynamic interplay between top-down policies and bottom-up consumer interests; this takes place against the backdrop of European policy towards analogue switch-off and other technological changes.

In Flanders, for example, the analogue terrestrial signal has been switched off (which was no major problem as 97% of viewers were using cable anyway). DTV cable companies now have some 1.2 million subscribers, with another 70,000 served by digital satellite providers. Each of these providers offers additional channels, and the cable companies also provide on-demand content and additional interactive services.

Leuven.
The first paper session at EuroITV 2009 starts with Nils Walravens, whose focus is on the past, present,and future of HDTV in Europe. In Europe, only 20% of users currently own HD-ready screens, and only 5% view HD content at this point (so surprisingly, Australia seems to be ahead on this point - a sign of its growing prosperity over the past decade?).

HD emerged first in Japan, as a new analogue standard that was incompatible with existing TV standards; in Europe, HDTV was seen in the late 80s and early 90s as a lifeline for the television industry (struggling at the time), and there was a drive towards developing its own standards (which failed, due to poor policy decisions). European development failed to consult effectively within and beyond the industry; terrestrial transmission was impossible, not least because signal quality was poor; the standard remained analogue, not digital; and prototype devices were ugly and extremely expensive. And of course there was no attractive content which would drive user adoption. HDTV was translated as 'high-deficit television' as a result...

Leuven.
If this is Thursday, I must be in Belgium... I've made the (surprisingly lengthy) trip from Hamburg to Leuven near Brussels for the EuroITV (as in, interactive television) conference. On the face of it, this may seem only peripherally connected to my own research interests, but in my paper I'll be continuing to explore the theme of user-led disruptions to the conventional television model which I addressed in my MIA article and the presentation at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress last year.

We start with a keynote by Rich Ezekiel, Director of Yahoo! Connected TV. He begins by outlining Yahoo!'s successful experiments with TV widgets. This responds to changed user expectations for television, which are driven not least also by phenomena such as increasingly powerful DVRs, video on demand, growing Internet connectivity in TVs, a proliferation of TV channels (whose content is no longer identified through electronic programme guides, but through a search logic), and substantial changes to the economics of content.