Second-screen apps now key part of TV programming strategies

With the growth of active social media online communities, second-screen applications are now considered an important component for new television programming viewed across multiple distribution platform. Indeed, according to several major programming and studio executives who discussed the issue at last week’s CES 2013 gathering, the second screen now has significant influence on how a program is positioned and, sometimes, whether it stays on the air or not. 

The biggest shift in the last two years is that the second-screen experience used to be layered on to the program as an after-effect but now when a network is pitching a show, it is viewed as part of a show.

Second-screen apps are now being built into the cable, satellite and Telco multichannel infrastructure. But most of the executives noted that sufficient funding for the second-screen efforts is a difficult problem.

(Broadcast Engineering)