What’s going on with Gaming TV?
A few months ago there was a rise in activity in what could loosely be termed “Gaming TV”. We had increased activity in Roulette TV from the likes of Smartlive and Netplay. There were also a few new companies arriving on the scene such as Ionoco.
I heard it suggested that maybe the activity was just some charlatans taking refuge from the premium rate / call TV disaster and who spotted an opportunity to use their talents in gaming?!
Anyway, another interesting thing happened – GalaBingo started streaming their Bingo channel onto their website and multiplied their players overnight. The big one was in June – ITV’s Bingo Night Live kicked off and finally brought gaming TV in from the cold and onto a terrestrial channel and in a reasonably attractive time slot. What’s more, it was a free game. Gaming TV was normally targeted at small core of serious players and like call TV, it was absolutely focused on transactions. It generally isn’t that entertaining to watch if you’re not playing. In contrast, ITV’s Bingo Night Live has a bigger budget and a studio bigger than a garden shed. It looks good!
So ITV’s late night bingo is obviously a way to generate traffic for ITV.com and to generate an acquisition pool for Party Gaming to fish in. They finally announced some numbers which look pretty good:
Between 3,000 and 5,000 new players are now registering their details every day on ITV.com to play Bingo Night Live. Van Rest said the lure of cash prizes was driving traffic and providing insight into audience viewing habits.
“We are working towards achieving online advertising revenues of £150m [now revised to a 2012 target]. Driving an extra 50,000 people to the site every day is a definite way that we can grow that,” van Rest said.
I’d love to know the conversion figures. Well, maybe we can ask Peter Cavanagh from Mirada Gaming, a company who power Bingo Night Live amongst others. Peter is speaking at EiG in Barcelona this year and I’m moderating the the session. I’m looking forward to it. Come along and ask easy questions!
Can you spice up your moderation with some live calling? Give out free game-cards and you may get some of the last day stragglers to turn off their blackberrys.
Good luck!
A last day 10:30am start was a struggle but I think it went reasonably well considering all! It definitely needed more spice to jolt the tired and hungover audience. Actually, it needed a mini-bar in the auditorium serving bloody marys… good to see you!
Far from live gaming being a flash in the pan or some sort of refuge for hard-pressed gambling sites, as far as Smart Live Casino is concerned "live" is a concept whose time has come.
We’ve been operating simultaneously on TV and online since May 2007 and we’re expanding our output with a new live automated roulette table on Sky 870 and a live Blackjack game, featuring real qualified dealers and actual cards! No computer simulation for us … !
In coming months we’ll also be launching a live Poker channel too. Full details of all our live services can be found at our website, smartlivecasino.com.
Quizmania is returning to British TV screens this summer on Channel 5
spread the word!