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Channel 4 is making All 4 accounts mandatory early next year
Channel 4 is going the way of the BBC early next year, when it will begin forcing users to sign up for an All 4 account in order to access the catchup service. No doubt, like the BBC, this will give Channel 4 the opportunity to better tailor the All 4 experience to the individual. But switching accounts from optional to mandatory isn't without an ulterior motive. Just as the BBC peeks at user data to catch out licence fee dodgers, Channel 4 will utilise it to serve targeted ads to nearly every All 4 streamer, whether they be watching on a phone, tablet, console or smart TV.
Channel 4's online TV ads will call you out by name
Adverts are about to get a lot more personalised -- or creepier, depending on your point of view -- the next time you hop on the All 4 streaming service to catch up on The Island with Bear Grylls. This month, Channel 4 is bringing a new ad format to its on-demand platform that targets the viewer directly, including their name as part of the promo. Channel 4 gets this information from your All 4 account details, of course, and it's not a case of simply stamping that on an outro slide. In eerie, Minority Report style, the ads will actually talk to you (a world first, apparently), calling out your name and telling you to "run" after showing you a trailer for Alien: Covenant, for example.
Sky's AdSmart brings targeted advertising to your TV
As it turns out, Sky isn't prepared to sit and watch while its business gets trashed by Google and chums. To get in on the targeted-advertising game, the broadcaster is launching a new platform on its UK set-top boxes, called AdSmart. The system works by sending a library of clips direct to your Sky+HD box, which will run during ad breaks in live broadcasts in place of the standard national ads transmitted to everyone else. So, while the rest of the country is being sold nappies, you could be watching a pre-downloaded ad for a new phone, for instance. The targeting might not be totally precise, however, because we're told that the only information Sky has access to is your post code and Experian's records, but hey -- perhaps you'll be clued-in when your local restaurant begins offering a new menu.
