Sky boss hints at surprising ways to find out what you want to watch on TV

Personal recommendations are part and parcel of modern video-on-demand on-demand services, but what if they were based on your phone conversations?

Sky's Chief Executive Stephen Van Rooyen has set out his ideas as to how TV operators could increase their insight into what kind of programmes a viewer might want to watch.

In an interview to industry magazine Broadcast looking at possible future developments, he said:

 When a customer comes home in the evening, we’d like to be able to know what kind of day they have had, and decide whether to recommend a comedy or the latest episode of Succession. 

 In an ideal world, I would understand more about what your commute was like, or whether you had a tonne of meetings, to help our algorithm predict what you might enjoy.

According to Broadcast, potential sources of data could come from mobile phone conversations, wearable devices or consumer's diaries. There's even talk sensors in set-top-boxes.

Sky is already using basic customer insights for advertising and promotions, even the BBC has now signed up so it can offer personalised promotions to BBC viewers.

And with all major broadcasters now requiring customer data as part of registration for their services, claiming it's needed to enable personalisation - helping them to decide what you want to watch, the days of truly anonymous TV viewers seem to be on the way out.

But where would you draw the line? Or are you not bothered if a broadcaster wants to find out more about you in order so long as it means you get more of the kind of TV programmes you want to watch?

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