Google still believes there will be “a lot of opportunity” for its Google TV platform as the connected TV market evolves, despite the lack of success of the initial version of the platform, according to Suveer Kothari, head of international, Google TV.
“A lot of people are watching connected TVs, and as the space evolves we believe there will be a lot of opportunities,” Kothari said in response to questions after delivering a keynote at Informa’s OTTtv World Summit in London. “We hope we can bring a nice open operating system into that space. As you have seen we launched version 2 of Google TV and there have been significant changes to the platform.”
Kothari said that Google was “working hard to launch [Google TV] outside the US”. He said that the company was working to launch internationally next year but that it had no firm plans as yet.
Kothari said that, while the original version of the platform had been very computer centric, Google had learned lessons, such as reducing the amount of text-based content and bringing the Android market to the new version. He said that version 2 was attracting a lot of interest from application developers as a result.
On Google’s positioning in the TV market, Kothari said Google TV was an operating system. “Other parts of Google are experimenting in different areas. We are looking for areas where we can bring benefits to users. That explains why we are doing things on YouTube and [launching] fibre services in Kansas,” he said.
On relations with content providers he said that Google was “seeing a lot of content owners build apps for Google TV now” and reiterated that there had been a lot of misunderstanding about what Google was trying to achieve with the platform originally.
ICYMI: @ITV seeks new chair; Richard Sharp appointment confirmed at @BBC digitaltveurope.com/2021/01/19/itv… https://t.co/9urYgJR0qb
19 January 2021 @ 21:00:00 UTC
ICYMI: @DisneyPlusHS at considerable lead over Netflix and local competitors in Indonesia digitaltveurope.com/2021/01/19/dis… https://t.co/XJXdkhO7bm
19 January 2021 @ 20:00:01 UTC
ICYMI: The Serpent and A Perfect Planet lead to record-breaking year start for @BBCiPlayer digitaltveurope.com/2021/01/19/the… https://t.co/hHH0Ly2Iui
19 January 2021 @ 19:00:01 UTC
.@WarnerMedia alum Kevin Reilly emerges at Israeli AI firm Deepdub digitaltveurope.com/2021/01/19/war…
19 January 2021 @ 18:30:00 UTC
.@AENetworks promotes Soriano to international programming chief digitaltveurope.com/2021/01/19/ae-… https://t.co/ZYsEcbt2D4
19 January 2021 @ 18:01:00 UTC