On Friday afternoon, the IET Media Technical Network ran a series of panels on "The End of Broadcast", including one on "Platform Wars -The De-aggregation And Re-aggregation Of Content"I would like to thank Brian Paxton from Kingsmead Security, Chris Ambrozic from TiVo, Colin Phillips from BT and Colin Dixon from nScreenMedia (shown in the picture from left to right) . Thanks also to Justin Lebbon for moderating the panel. It was a lively and informative discussion. While it's clear that we are entering a new phase in the content distribution sector, the outcomes are still far from clear.

A video of the event is online. These were my main takeaways -

• Colin Dixon cited research that consumers reach "max stacking" at 2 to 3 pay TV apps. Chris Ambrozic reported that TiVo see a figure of 7.2 of total (paid and free) apps.

• Colin Phillips discussed "super-aggregation" with unified search, recommendation and UX. This is the model that YouView in the UK follow, where content providers publish their meta-data to the central database and follow UX guidelines to align their UX.  This probably shouldn't be a surprise if we consider that Google has been providing unified search for the Internet for twenty years. The example of Spotify which also mentioned. As they have most of the music content, users can navigate the music "universe" without barriers once they are in the environment.

• Several content brands are now going, or about to go, direct to consumer, which will challenge the incumbent OTT operators such as Netflix and Prime. Disney will most likely lead this wave, due the their large archive and ongoing production. Tony Hall is due to tell the RTS convention in Cambridge this week that direct to consumer will be the "second wave of disruption."

• Smart TVs should be the default UI, taking over from "HDMI 1". They used to be clunky and lack support, but should improve as Android, Amazon and Roku all offer their own Smart TVs.

• Brian Paxton pointed out that better and increased access to content, especially sport, could reduce piracy levels.