The winners of the new "Connect! The Smart TV Award" have been announced. In five categories, Deutsche TV-Plattform and MEDIENTAGE MÜNCHEN honoured the best innovations, apps and services in the field of networked television.

CONNECT! THE SMART TV AWARD: The winners of the award ceremony on 23.6.2020

Category 1: Like2Use - Best User Experience
Sky Deutschland: Sky Q

Category 2: Feels like Magic - Best technological innovation
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Behinderung und Medien (abm), Bayerische Medien Technik (bmt) & Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT): Television for EVERYONE - fully inclusive with HbbTV

Category 3: Loud & Clear - Best Brand Performance
ProSiebenSat.1 Digital: Interactive TV event: "Can You Survive Moon?

Category 4: Good2CU - Best special interest offer
Telekom Deutschland: MagentaSport - Conference Alarm

Category 5: All Eyes on you - Best Newcomer
RTL2 television: Quick Polls on behalf of RTLZWEI RED.

The winners were selected by a jury of five experts: Christine Gebhard (film-tvvideo.de), Prof. Dr. Heidi Krömker (TU Ilmenau), Jan Möllendorf (defacto x), Jürgen Sewczyk (Eutelsat) and Torsten Zarges (DWDL). A total of 70 applications were received in the course of the call for proposals. The award is supported by MedienNetzwerk Bayern.

Andre Prahl, CEO of Deutsche TV-Plattform: "Congratulations to the winners of the Smart TV Awards 2020! The winning services are prime examples of modern, interactive television that creates tangible added value for viewers and customers. We are delighted that the first edition of 'Connect! The Smart TV Award was so successful. I would like to thank our partner Medien.Bayern GmbH for the excellent cooperation and the MedienNetzwerk Bayern for their valuable support.

"For the first time we were able to implement a digital award ceremony including current industry insights online and are delighted with the great response from the industry. Networked television is booming and therefore it was the perfect time for us to honour special innovations, apps and services related to networked television. Together with Deutsche TV-Plattform and with the support of MedienNetzwerk Bayern, we therefore launched the "Connect! The Smart TV Award" this year. We congratulate the winners of the first award on their innovative products and services," says Stefan Sutor, Managing Director of Medien.Bayern GmbH.

The digital award ceremony was flanked by current industry insights on the topic of "Connected TV", which took place in cooperation with MEKmedia. Around 400 participants took part in the first online-only edition of the MEDIENTAGE Special. In the lecture "Rising Star Smart TV - New possibilities in a digital world", Jennifer Kipka (Goldbach Germany) and Christian Russ (Samsung Ads) discussed current developments in Smart TV distribution, use and advertising in the DACH region. They also showed how the current corona pandemic is affecting the Connected TV market. It becomes clear that the usage time has increased significantly during the Corona pandemic and Connected TV is on the rise. Nevertheless, linear TV is not being displaced. "There is no longer only linear or only stream, one does not eat the other", says Christian Russ.

Florian Hager (funk / ARD), Dr. Christoph Schneider (Amazon Prime Video Germany) and Alexandar Vassilev (Joyn) provided insights into the current situation in networked TV in the talk "Home is where CTV is". After Corona, the useful life will probably decrease again, but nevertheless the panel participants are sure that many new viewers have been won over to the topic of smart TV, who will continue to be interested in it even after the pandemic.

Christof Baron (Media for Excellence), Dr. Oliver Friedrich (Google) and Dr. Oliver Vesper (smartclip) gave a status on the topic "Connected TV Advertising". "Every crisis is also always a shift and changes media use. This crisis will put pressure on linear television and push Connected TV" explains Christof Baron (Media for Excellence). The event was moderated by Carine Lea Chardon (ZVEI / Deutsche TV-Plattform).

The recording of the event can be found here: https://medientage.de/smart-tv-live/
A summary of the event can be found on the MEDIENTAGE MÜNCHEN blog: https://blog.medientage.de/