2nd Screen Summit: Second Screen Groundwork Being Laid

Panel says tablets represent a huge revolution in media usage

By Greg Tarr, TWICE -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/28/2012 1:00:52 PM

New York - The advent of the tablet PC has spearheaded "a revolution" in second-screen multitasking in TV viewing, and has laid the foundation for a potentially lucrative future in content creation, products and services.

That seemed to be the assessment of consumer data assembled by The NPD Group industry analysis director Ben Arnold, speaking at the 2nd Screen Summit NYC sponsored by TWICE, Multichannel News, Broadcasting & Cable and the Media Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) during CE Week here Wednesday.

Arnold said the invention of the tablet PC "really represents a huge revolution in terms of what people are doing with simultaneous media usage. Social networking right now is fueling a lot of that second-screen activity."

Most that activity is coming from interactive television technologies that rely heavily on social networking to move TV watching "from the lean-back experience to a little more of a lean-forward experience," Arnold said.

"The connected screen is in people's homes today and will serve as the building block for more devices," Arnold offered, and "in terms of the second screen, this new way of consumers getting in touch with content is a really good thing."

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