BRAVIA Internet Video is one of the key propositions that we offer to customers who buy a Sony connected device. It gives consumers the chance to watch content from a variety of different providers such as BBC iPlayer, Demand Five, Lovefilm, Youtube, Sky News to name just a few. Customers also have the opportunity to purchase premium movies on a pay-per-view basis from the 'Video on demand' service and subscribe to 'Music Unlimited' which lets users listen to unlimited tracks from a library of over 7 million songs. 

BRAVIA Internet video features on 23 out of 24 of our Bravia televisions as well as on all of our Blu-Ray players and our Netbox, which is great for people who have a slightly older TV without internet functionality. 

Content partners, assuming they have the rights to a given territory, can share their content anywhere in the world. So, in the UK, when you first buy a device it connects to Sony servers, checks your location and shows you the services you can get in your region. In the UK, that's principally the major catch-up suppliers like BBC iPlayer and Channel 5, Sky News, Sony Entertainment TV plus subscription services like Lovefilm and Video on Demand. 

We're still in the very early days of Connected TV and as an industry, we're trying to understand what connected TVs mean to the consumer. With second-screen applications on the horizon, how are multiple connected devices in the lounge going to talk to each other and provide an enhanced consumer experience? 

At present Sony have over 20 video services on the platform as well as supporting Twitter and Facebook, but Sony are currently approaching it from a qualitative rather than an quantitative standpoint. Having too much choice can sometimes paralyse decision-making and we want to make sure the services we do make available are recognised, trusted and, most importantly, going to be useful to our customers. 

We really value our content partners and the additional services that they deliver to the consumer as well as helping us to differentiate our proposition. We tend to describe BRAVIA Internet Video as a shopping mall, in that the mall is owned by Sony and we rent plots out to content partners to showcase their content and acquire new customers. 

Much of the content from partners is free at the point of delivery. Some services, such as Channel 5, are ad-supported and then we have subscription services like Lovefilm. Video on Demand is a pay-per-view service. The way we look at it is trying to understand what the partner wants to get out of the service and how we can best work them to achieve their goals, thus any new deals that we sign with content partners clearly have to work for both parties and, using our experience, we look at tailoring a deal to the specific partner. 

Whilst the current trend is around ad supported content, one just has to look at the news to see that many different types of business models are being examined as this is such a dynamic ad fast moving industry. 

We give our content partners reach, that is, immediate access to the many millions of customers who have bought one of our connected devices across the globe. And because the platform is backwards-compatible, the partner service is available to use both for people buying new devices but also all the of the customers who already own a connected device. This is one of the key differences to an 'App Store' approach where the customer has to actively go out and look for the app. On Bravia, the apps are directly pushed out. Partners don't have to rely on consumers to find the service. 

Sony is one of the leading brands in this space and was the only major TV manufacturer to win a Connected TV award earlier in the year at the Connected TV Summit held in London. 

We've done a lot of research on how people watch television these days and particularly looking at the 'lean-back / lean-forward' experience depending on whether a person is watching programmes on a TV screen or an a laptop. One of the most interesting things we've found is that up to 40% of people in the UK had connected their PC to a television at some point whether that's to watch catch-up on the web or stream a movie or even just to look at photographs - basically using the TV as a big second screen driven by the PC. And what we take from that is that most consumers prefer the 'lean-back' experience for big-screen entertainment. And that's borne out by viewing figures for something like the BBC iPlayer. Although iPlayer content is still mostly viewed on a computer there are a growing number of people watching it on their TV sets. Connected devices are starting to take a share away from PCs. 

For me, the second-screen experience - and how it evolves - is absolutely fascinating. Anthony Rose (one of the architects of the first BBC iPlayer) was quoted the other day as saying that second-screen is going to be a disruptive technology in both good and bad ways. Second screens will help provide a unique experience for every single person. One could argue that Facebook and Twitter aren't main-screen applications: they can be private to the individual user. So, in a 2.4 children household, the TV will be the big public screen for the whole family to watch whilst the kids might be individually interacting with these social services on a tablet or a phone but still getting a private, customised experience to what the user feels like doing or consuming at that time. They complement the main screen. 

We want to see BRAVIA Internet Video on as many devices as possible. Our chairman said a couple of years ago that 95% of our product categories would be connected to the Internet by the end of 2011 and we are well on the way to achieving that.