'RTVE Botón Rojo' is born, the new service for connected televisions that merges the Internet and the television signal

The service is now accessible by simply pressing the red button on the remote control of the connected televisions. It brings 'RTVE A la carte' to television with more than 90,000 hours of broadcast, news and extra and interactive content.

RTVE unites the best of the Internet together with the best of television through remote control. It is a television service with hybrid technology (DTT signal and Internet) by which by simply pressing the red button on the remote control of the connected televisions and in a very simple way you can access the entire RTVE A la Carte offer, news and sports. RTVE presented the 'Red Button' this Thursday at the Vitoria-Gasteiz TV Festival, thus leading connected television services. It is a new multimedia commitment that marks the audiovisual path of the Internet.

TVE journalist Mara Torres was in charge of presenting the inauguration of the 'Red Button', in which Ricardo Villa, RTVE's Director of Interactives, participated; Francisco Asensi, Director of Business Development at RTVE.es; María Maicas, deputy director of applications and multiscreens at RTVE.ES; and Miguel Campos, director of RTVE.es.

"We inaugurated the new service for connected televisions: we have merged the best of our internet service with the best of television. Our ambition is to be seen wherever the citizen is, to be on all screens...", explained Ricardo Villa.

“It was about finding the simplest way for any citizen to access more in-depth content, just by pressing a button,” Francisco Asensi stressed.

'Red Button': more than 90,000 broadcast hours

Until now, if you wanted to watch a television program, read a news story or see a sports result, you had to do it in different places: television, computer, mobile devices... Now these three elements merge into one by simply pressing the red button on your remote control thanks to the new service.

This new environment offers 24 hours a day on televisions with internet connection when you press the red button on the remote. These contents are offered in two ways: through continuity broadcasting and through broadcasts with extra live content.

The continuity broadcast is what TVE usually offers you: more than 90,000 hours of programs on RTVE A la carte, the main current news and access to informative programs, a Sports environment with the news, calendars and results of the main sports competitions, and all Clan's on-demand content.

Each of these environments is associated with the colored buttons on the controller: RTVE a la carte (yellow); Informative (blue); and Sports (green).

Furthermore, in some RTVE programs Botón Rojo offers the viewer content associated with what is being seen on television at that moment with extra live content: data, additional information, surveys or images.

If you want to deactivate RTVE Red Button and return to the program you were watching on TV, just press the red button again.

Technology

The RTVE Botón Rojo service has been developed by RTVE Interactive, after more than a year of work. It is a commitment by public radio and television to HBBTV technology for connected televisions, a standard developed in coordination with European public televisions and led in Spain by RTVE.

Televisions with access to hybrid DTT are SMART TVs or Internet-connected televisions that allow the use of the HbbTV standard. Virtually all televisions sold in Spain since 2012 have access to the Red Button. According to RTVE's internal calculations, more than one million homes can already use this service.

The European Hybrid Broadcast Television standard (HBBTV) is the technology on which this service is built - and has been promoted in Spain by the main players in the industry, including the main television channels, public administration, device manufacturers and developers of interactive services. Next year, it is expected that the new televisions will include the name “Hybrid DTT”, which will allow consumers to more easily identify these devices.
If the television is not connected to the internet or does not have hybrid DTT, RTVE RED BUTTON can be accessed through an adapter that can be purchased in specialized stores.

Once the user is connected to the Internet, they only have to select the “HbbTV” or “Data Service” option in the remote settings menu, which activates the hybrid connection of the TV. Then just press the red button on the remote to access RTVE BOTÓN ROJO and browse the thousands of content it offers.