The Connected TV World Summit held in London last week brought together many of the key players in the connected TV and pay TV industry – to share information, network, and listen to keynote speeches from leading industry executives.

Major consumer electronics manufacturers including Sony, Samsung and Philips were represented, along with pay TV operators including Sky, Virgin Media, BT Vision and Telecom Italia.

Pushbutton’s Eugene Lacey participated in a panel discussion addressing the question ‘Can pay TV keep winning in a connected world?’ Generally panel members defended the commercial proposition represented by the pay TV operators in the face of competition from new OTT market offerings. Eugene Lacey quoted a line from Virgin Media’s Ian Mecklenburgh, who had earlier told the audience that ‘the killer app for telly is telly’ and reminded the audience that we need to think more about content, and less about distribution technology. Other panel members argued that the industry should strive to make media consumption easier for viewers.

Samsung’s Dan Saunders described the progress that had been made with the app offering on the ‘Smart TV’ platform. He described a strategy aimed at ensuring ‘top tier’ apps like BBC iPlayer and LOVEFiLM were present and prominent, but that second tier apps were also encouraged on the platform.

In a separate Samsung presentation, Vassilis Seferidis, Director of European Business Development described the company’s involvement in the RVU Alliance – an innovative plan to use connected TVs to provide access to pay TV services without the need for a second, or third, STB.

Day Two of the Summit saw excellent presentations from Telecom Italia and Orange, amongst others.

Telecom Italia’s Paolo D’Andrea, Head of Broadband Content, described the firm’s ‘Cubovision’ offering and a strategy of leveraging as many CE technologies as possible, for example using connected TV’s as a delivery platform for the content offering.

Nicolas Bry, SVP of Orange Vallee, an innovation lab run by the giant telco, battled against demo gremlins that kept blanking the screen to deliver a well thought through, and stimulating take on social TV. Later, Nicolas sat on the closing panel of the show that addressed the question ‘Is Connected TV the future of IPTV’ – where he advised  connected TV manufacturers against a ‘walled garden’ approach. “It won’t work”, he said.