How was the ConTech 2022 conference: Content and technologies for digital TV in Russia, results, speakers, topics, trends, telecom, company faces, television, TV news

Moscow hosted the VII annual conference ConTech 2022. Content and technologies for digital TV in Russia. Experts talked about import substitution and market development trends, domestic and foreign TV, and representatives of the country’s largest media telecom companies showed new developments and promotions.

Opened the conference Contech 2022 panel discussion about the digital TV industry, its regulation, trends and forecasts. Experts confirmed that the departure of the largest American copyright holders from Russia did not lead to a serious shortage of content. TV channels and online platforms increase the volume of supply, primarily of Russian content, supplementing it with South Korean and Turkish products. Most experts agreed that it is Turkish series that now occupy the top positions in terms of viewing both in pay TV and in OTT.

Commenting on the state support measures that the media industry needs, Marketing Director Tricolor Alexey Lipilin spoke in favor of extending the benefits enjoyed by IT companies to media companies. “We feel the support of the state, but the IT industry receives the main assistance from us. At the same time, companies operating in the media industry want support measures to be similar. First of all, we are talking about benefits on insurance premiums, VAT. Perhaps the state will pay attention to the fact that the media industry needs such support. It would help us a lot.”– said Alexey Lipilin. Experts of the technological stream session “Back to the future: will import independence become a driver for the development of the digital TV market?” considered the consequences of sanctions and the withdrawal of foreign vendors from Russia, the technological capabilities of operators and the import substitution of software for media measurements.

Head of New Products Service Tricolor Valery Petrov introduced a new branded product “Tricolor” – line of Smart TVs, consisting of four models with diagonals of 32, 43, 50 and 55 inches. All models, with the exception of the 32-inch, support Ultra HD resolution, the “youngest” model in the line has HD resolution.

TVs from Tricolor are based on the Android 11 operating system, have 1.5 GB and 8 GB of RAM, which allows you to view streaming video and install applications. All TVs are adapted to work in satellite, cable and terrestrial television networks, equipped with dual-band Wi-Fi, HDMI and USB connectors, CI slots for the CAM module. The TVs are preinstalled with the Tricolor Cinema and TV branded application, and all TV buyers in the branded online store receive an annual subscription to Tricolor services.

Chairman of the Committee for the Strategic Development of Media Projects under the Board of Directors of Tricolor Nikolai Orlov spoke about a new application developed for TV viewers – “Tricolor Second Screen”. Now the functionality of the application is implemented in four sections, which simplify the search for a movie or program in a TV program. The client receives personal content recommendations based on their favorite channels and genres, a selection of interesting articles, interviews and recipes with the ability to save publications to favorites. In addition, in the “Second Screen” you can set a reminder for a specific TV event so as not to miss the broadcast on the channel. The application has ample development opportunities: it is planned to introduce into the Second Screen the functions of remote control of the TV and receiver, voice search and control of Tricolor services, seamless image transmission from TV to smartphone and other functions for comfortable viewing. For now, the Second Screen app works on Android smartphones, and it will also be available to iOS users early next year.

Within the framework of the session “Family viewing: what should be the TV content that unites both older and younger?” director of content production Tricolor Marina Gasparyan attracted the attention of participants to a new channel in the line of film TV channels of the operator’s own production – Scream.

Mesh new channel, which began broadcasting at the end of October, includes American, European and Asian horror and mystery films. At the same time, Scream content is fully relevant and up-to-date: 70% of the films shown on the TV channel were released in 2018-2022. According to Marina Gasparyan, Scream is also well suited for a family show, given that watching horror movies together is very popular among young couples.

Commenting on the growing popularity of eSports broadcasts, Tricolor Sports Projects Director Maria Grishko noted that the audiences of such broadcasts and pay TV practically do not overlap. At the same time, Tricolor sees the prospects for such broadcasting in an online cinema. Maria Grishko also said that it is almost impossible to replace the display of foreign tournaments with broadcasts of domestic competitions. Nevertheless, in Tricolor, where they rely specifically on Russian sports, they do not see a serious negative effect on their audience due to the lack of broadcasts of popular foreign competitions on the air.

The business program of the conference ended with a pitch session of television novelties of the season, including thematic channels, animation and film projects. One of the memorable moments of the pitch session was the story about the new projects of the director of the advertising and promotion service of the First TVCh television company, Maria Cherkasskaya. In recent years, the TV company has doubled its package of produced and distributed channels to 35 units, now it includes thematic, movie series, children’s and sports channels. In early November, the TV company updated the Food Premium TV channel. Now it is called Food time, the visual concept and design of the studio and the programs themselves have been changed. The channel network has been expanded with new culinary shows, including battles and gastronomic tours. In addition, in the fall of this year, “First TVCh” began to distribute the new Tricolor TV channel Scream.

The general partner of the ConTech-2022 conference is the multiplatform operator Tricolor; the partner of the session dedicated to family content is the First TVCh television company. Also partners of the conference were: the Medialogistics project, MSK-IX, NTV-Plus, GS Labs, EPG Service and NLE. The conference was supported by the Association of Animated Films and the International Academy of Telecommunications. More than 200 delegates gathered at the event site, the online broadcast gathered more than 100 spectators.

Photo: ConTech

Author: Ivan Gagarin