IBC is (almost) upon us and while everyone is busy putting the final touches to their campaigns, we decided to celebrate the reason we’re all in this industry: our love for TV on TV Dinner Day (yes, it’s a real thing).

The concept of the ‘TV dinner’ was coined in 1953 when Swanson, an American brand of frozen foods and broths, launched its line of ‘TV dinner’ frozen meals. 10 years before colour TV was invented, a whole new era of entertainment was born… putting an end to awkward silences around the kitchen table. Since then, eating and watching TV seems to have become the norm – only now, we’re doing it on multiple devices, simultaneously.

Over the course of the past 70 years, TV has evolved tremendously, and it’s fair to say that the past 10 years have seen it undergo a new revolution with the rise of multi-platform video services. While TV had previously been a social activity with clear dates and times (ah, my weekly meeting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Saturday nights…), it is no longer such a simple, linear world… although the FIFA World Cup last summer showed us that live sports continues to attract huge audiences live.

With the rise of catch-up and Over-the-Top channels available online through a plethora of platforms, we are firmly in the personalised video era – or so it seems, when we look at all the headlines announcing the end of linear TV, the rise of cord-cutting and time spent watching video online. The reality is, of course, more nuanced: traditional broadcast is going strong, while the entire industry needs to juggle with new forms of consumption. To know exactly where the industry stands, stay tuned for our upcoming ‘Platform Media Index’ for IBC, where we will reveal the hottest trends at the show.

What’s TV Dinner day like at Platform?

Ahead of the show, I asked the whole Platform team about their staple TV dinner and learnt a lot about how people watch TV – and their eating habits… I wasn’t particularly surprised to discover there are as many ways to watch TV today as there are Platformers! To see the whole picture gallery, head to our Instagram account.