MUMBAI: For all the talk of the death of linear television, 95 per cent of all television programmes watched in 2012 will be live or within a day of the original broadcast.

Even the advent of social networks has enhanced, rather than diminished, the schedule?s appeal as commentary on programmes has expanded from the living room to a community.

Conventional broadcasters need to build on this power and show advertisers the advantages of the schedule and building campaigns within the context of a schedule. While things will have changed half a century from now, when RTE reaches its 100 year anniversary, the schedule is still king in 2012.

In its 2012 report, Deloitte?s Technology Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Industry Group has stated about the rise of the multi-tablet owner: The tablet explosion has shown little sign of slowing down since the format hit the market in 2010 and it is set to take the mantle of the most rapid ?multi-anything? market penetration in history. Roughly five million tablets will be sold to people that already owned one in 2012 generating up to $2 billion in revenue.

However the tablet market will diversify around size, processing power, price and operating system in 2012 as was the case with smart phones. Corporations are also likely to require tablets with greater security and ruggedness.

That presents a challenge for content owners, network operators and retailers that need to prepare to respond to the rise in the multi-tablet household. In Ireland, CIOs will be cognisant of the fact that their organisations cannot afford to lose pace with disruptive innovations such as mobile and tablet computing or they risk losing pace with their customers.

Big data becomes a big deal : Globally, interest in big data, although in its infancy is set to grow in 2012 which will see 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies kick off a big data initiative, triggering industry revenue of between $1 billion and 1.5 billion.

Internet companies have led the way with exploring big data but fast follower sectors are likely to include the public sector, financial services, retail, entertainment and media. Increasing levels of online activity and social interactions are one of the developments driving the emergence of the ?big data? market.

As data volumes grow exponentially, traditional database technologies struggle to generate timely insights. In the Irish context, few organisations currently have the data volumes to justify ?big data? initiatives, and few organisations have maximised the insight from transactional databases.

Deloitte suggests that, as big data continues to evolve, the majority of Irish organisations should focus on the effective use of existing transactional data to drive decision-making before looking to the opportunities that ?big data? opens in terms of insight from unstructured information and real-time insight.

MUMBAI: In a bid to attract foreign investments, the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) has simplified its industry funding schemes from 46 to five.

The MDA Grant Schemes, which seek to position the media industry for the future, are a result of a series of consultations with the industry from the start of the year.

The Schemes also seek to meet the evolving needs of the industry at five key stages of growth from ideation, production, marketing, talent up-skilling to enterprise development.

The MDA Grant Schemes are applicable to all seven sectors of the media industry: Broadcast, Animation, Film, Music, Interactive Media, Games and Publishing.

Funding is in the form of grants, which encourages media companies and individuals to own and more fully capitalise on the Intellectual Property of their product, service or solution, and to do so across different media platforms as well.

A total of S$88m has been set aside for the five schemes. Existing projects under the 46 schemes will continue to be serviced to completion.