YouView have published a consultation "2014 Consultation on YouView’s UI Policy and On-Demand Player Re-Order"
http://assets.youview.com/news/files/Consultation_on_UI_Policy_7_November_2014.pdf
I guess NetFlix weren't best pleased about ending up at the tail end of the players. But this consultation also considers IP channels, which seems promising for future content.
The sensible thing to do from the user's point of view is to allow them to put the players in their own preferred order.
Indeed. Unfortunately I suspect there are several entities whose point of view weighs more with YouView, viz.:
a) content providers who are YouView shareholders with a vote on policy and who want their players to be on the first screen
b) content providers who are not shareholders but whose content pulls in the viewer numbers (such as NetFlix and, to a lesser extent, Sky), and who want their players to be on the first screen
c) ISP partners, who subsidise most of the boxes, provide most of YouView's funding, and want their players to be on the first screen
Et cetera. Against this, the wishes of actual users have little leverage.
Seenit says:
YouView says it will continue to reserve the first four for catch-up apps from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five.The fifth slot will be allocated either to apps from BT and TalkTalk in homes which subscribe to their services, to additional PSB apps such as ITV Player in Scotland where the STV app would sit next to iPayer, or to the most popular commercial, non-PSB app where neither an ISP or additional PSB app was present.
The changes would promote Netflix to the top non-PSB/ISP slot, with Sky’s NOW TV sitting alongside it, with all other slots allocated according to popularity.
Sounds like there's not a lot left to consult about, really.
http://www.seenit.co.uk/youview-launches-consultation-on-ui-changes/
To recap, about 5 minutes after NetFlix landed on YouView and found itself stuck on the second page of on-demand players, YouView launched a Consultation on UI Policy to consider re-ordering the players.
Results have now been announced. It has been decided that NetFlix should be promoted to the first page.
The whole premise behind this initiative has me confused. If I want to look at something on YouTube I don't open up the on-demand screens and choose whatever happens to be on the first screen simply because it is first, e.g. BBC iPlayer - I go to whichever page YouTube is on.
Do the broadcasters have such a low opinion of the public they assume we can't find the content if it's not on page 1?
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