TV3 touts for business at Edinburgh TV festival

The star keynote speaker may be actor and face-of-Netflix Kevin Spacey, but the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival is also a good place for picking up business, according to TV3, one of the sponsors of this year's event.

The Irish broadcaster is using its presence at the three-day conference to promote the availability of its 500sq m Sony HD studio in Ballymount in Dublin to international television producers, including those looking to record pilot programmes at competitive rates. TV3 is also showcasing ShowPal, the viewing companion app it developed with Dublin technology company Axonista, to potential trade clients.

"Broadcasters like us around the world are facing an interesting challenge as to where their growth will come from," said TV3 director of broadcasting Niall Cogley. "One of the great things about TV3 is that as a test bed, we could hardly be better positioned."

Eyeballs of viewers

Real Cool Stuff, a science programme commissioned by BBC Worldwide, is currently being filmed in the Dublin studio, while earlier this summer Tyrone Productions shot School Around the Corner for RTÉ using the facility. TV3 chief executive David McRedmond and director of content Jeff Ford, formerly of British broadcaster Channel 5, were also at the Edinburgh conference to help drive new studio bookings that will help make TV3's investment pay off. The ShowPal app, which is designed to capture the eyeballs of viewers who engage in "second screening" while their television is on, has been piloted among a test group and will be available to download next month.

Feed the app
TV3 has formed a team of four people who will feed the app by pushing out links and other content relating to the programmes it broadcasts between 6pm and midnight. The app also includes embedded Twitter feeds and a "gamification" element such as poll votes or viewer competitions.

Stephen Grant, director of ShowPal for TV3, said he believed the second-screen app was the first of its kind in the European television industry and would help broadcasters retain data about audience behaviour.