World leaders in the OTT space will come together to discuss the importance of OTT and its future in the industry

London, 14 February 2013 – Bob Zitter, EVP and CTO of Home Box Office (HBO) and Daniel Danker, General Manager of On Demand at the BBC, leading industry players in the OTT space, are set to deliver keynotes at next month’s TV Connect in London. The conference and exhibition, now in its ninth year, has evolved to reflect the changing nature of the converging connected entertainment ecosystem, which increasingly looks towards services, content and user-experience, rather than just technology, to drive the market.

Zitter and Danker will keynote on Day Three, Analysing the Continued Evolution of OTT Platforms. Zitter, who has been a technology leader and innovator throughout the history of HBO and within the industry at large, is responsible for overseeing the company’s technology efforts worldwide including consumer technology, distribution, origination, production operations, engineering and IT, as well as overseeing HBO’s research and development related to emerging new media platforms. Zitter will present on Understanding the Role of HBO in Being the Market Leader in New Technology Development.

“Interactivity and convergence with the Internet are enabling television to become more than a passive medium,” commented Zitter. “Viewers are able to dive deeper into the story, access sports statistics to supplement the game, or share their thoughts with their friends. Advertisers are able to target specific viewers in meaningful ways (see the press reports on how Obama won the US election!).

“Mobility and portability of video programme distribution will, in my opinion, have a profound impact on the television business. As viewers are able to consume programming outside the home, so many opportunities arise and will evolve. In the end, consumers want to control what they watch, when they watch it, and on what device they use. Success in the television programming business will recognise and serve this need, without regard to the distribution technology,” concluded Zitter.

Following the success of BBC On Demand and its role in giving audiences a “virtual ticket” to the London Olympics in 2012, Danker will present on Assessing the Continued Development of the iPlayer Platform, Post London 2012. Danker is responsible for the strategy and delivery of BBC’s iPlayer, Radio and Music and Red Button products, as well as delivering underlying platforms for media, social, blogging, television and mobile experiences across the BBC Online product portfolio.

“We have three strategies for BBC iPlayer: to go beyond the PC, beyond catch-up, and beyond the tech-savvy,” said Danker. “With iPlayer available on over 650 platforms and devices, we have certainly made tremendous progress on ubiquitous availability. Even more so now that audiences can download programmes to a mobile or tablet and consume them offline. Alongside this ubiquity, we’re focused on two themes: making BBC iPlayer just as easy to use as channel flipping on a television, and expressing the BBC’s editorial voice within the product.

“That editorial voice is all about bringing familiar programme and channel brands to the foreground, putting curation at the core of the experience so we build on the decades of experience the BBC has in introducing audiences to programmes they love, and turning iPlayer into a platform for the creative and editorial teams at the BBC. Creativity is at the heart of the BBC, and online is a wonderful canvas for us to bring that creativity to audiences.”

The agenda features special OTT dedicated tracks across each day which will focus on The New Pay TV Environment; Social TV, Data Analytics and The New UI; and Managing Media Assets.

These tracks will see industry heavyweights discuss the role of OTT services in the connected entertainment space and includes Ceren Onen, Project Manager, Turkcell; Ed Palluth, EVP Global Distribution, AMC Networks; Kevin O’Neil, Head of TV Product Management, Virgin Media, UK; Saido So, Senior Director, Sony Network Entertainment and Matt Frost, Senior Product Manager, Google.

The event will take place at the Olympia Exhibition Centre, London on 19 – 21 March 2013.

To view the full event programme and register for TV Connect, please visit http://www.tvconnectevent.com/. Alternatively, keep up to date with the event on Twitter @tvconnectevent or by using #tvconnect.