The evolution of HbbTV through the awards – Part 2: Helping viewers find and watch more content
Since the inaugural HbbTV Awards in Rome in 2017, the awards have reflected the changing ways broadcasters, platform operators and technology providers use HbbTV to create new services and experiences for viewers.
The evolution of the award categories mirrors the evolution of HbbTV itself. Early awards recognised broadcast enhancement, multiscreen services and content discovery, while more recent categories reflect the growing importance of advertising, accessibility, operator applications and audience measurement. Together, the winners show how HbbTV has developed from enhancing linear television into a platform supporting comprehensive streaming services.
In this three-part series, we look back at some of the notable winners and use cases from across the history of the HbbTV Awards, exploring what they reveal about the evolution of hybrid television.
Entries for the 2026 HbbTV Awards are now open. If you have developed an innovative HbbTV product, service or application, we encourage you to submit an entry via the HbbTV Awards 2026 entry form.
Helping viewers discover more
Content discovery has been a recurring theme throughout the history of the HbbTV Awards. From programme guides and broadcaster applications to streaming portals and more recent AI-based approaches, HbbTV has provided broadcasters and platform operators with new ways to help viewers find something to watch.
At the inaugural awards in 2017, Digital UK’s Freeview Explore, a content discovery and recommendation feature for Freeview Play TVs, was recognised by the judges for its “seamless integration”. It provided a scrolling carousel across 10 programme genres, latest channel updates, and curated on-demand highlights from across UK broadcasters. The service demonstrated how HbbTV could build on the familiar television experience to make it easier for viewers to discover programmes and access additional content.
2017: Freeview Explore
A year later, the ARTE HbbTV App developed by Dotscreen was another notable winner. It is a free interactive TV service, that lets ARTE viewers stream European cultural content, documentaries, concerts, and series directly on their TV by pressing the red button. The judges described it as “an elegant, rich and sophisticated user experience”, demonstrating how HbbTV could provide a richer environment for exploring both linear and on-demand content.
2018: ARTE HbbTV App
In 2021, Dotscreen’s Salto Electronic Program Guide provided another example of how HbbTV could be used to create a richer programme discovery experience. These services show the progression from traditional television programme guides towards interfaces that can combine information about linear programmes with access to a much broader range of content.
2021: Salto Electronic Program Guide
This has been an important role for HbbTV. Broadcast channels can remain a familiar starting point for viewing, while broadband connectivity and an application environment provide viewers with richer ways to explore what is available and routes into additional content.
As these applications became more sophisticated, content discovery increasingly became more than simply helping viewers decide what to watch. It became the starting point for complete on-demand and streaming experiences, bringing broadcast and broadband television more closely together.
From programme guides to new ways of watching
As HbbTV applications developed, content discovery increasingly became a gateway to complete on-demand and streaming experiences rather than simply a way of finding programmes.
An important example came from Mediaset España, recognised in 2021 for both LOVEStv and its Mitele services. LOVEStv brought together content from Spain’s major broadcasters, providing viewers with access to features such as catch-up and start-over television, while Mitele provided Mediaset España’s own streaming portal. Together they demonstrated how HbbTV could connect the traditional broadcast experience with a much wider choice of online content.
2021: Mediaset España Mitele
ZDF provided further examples of how the viewing experience itself could be enhanced. Its ZDFmediathek Highlight-Player in 2022 was designed around major sporting events and addressed a simple viewer need: being able to find and watch important moments they had missed. It allowed smart TV users to jump directly to key scenes, goals, or major moments in broadcasts via broadband integration without switching apps or missing the live stream. The judges praised the service for meeting users’ demand not to miss “the best moments in great sports events”.
ZDF followed this in 2023 with ZDFmediathek: Zapping, developed with TeraVolt. The judges observed that while the feature appeared simple, it was an advanced HbbTV capability providing an excellent user experience.
2023: ZDF Zapping
These services illustrate an important progression. HbbTV applications were no longer simply providing information about what was available to watch. They were increasingly bringing linear television, catch-up, on-demand content and new ways of navigating video together, allowing viewers to move more easily between broadcast and streaming experiences.
Operator applications and the television experience
One of the most significant developments in HbbTV has been the emergence of operator applications.
The HbbTV Operator Application, or OpApp, specification enables a platform operator to provide an application that can take over much of the television’s normal user interface. This considerably expands the role HbbTV can play in the overall viewing experience.
An early indication of this potential came in 2019 with the HD+ TV App. Both HD+ and Panasonic won awards for their work on the HD+ service. The service integrates German satellite and IP broadcast services directly into the television UI. It provides live TV pause (time-shift up to 120 minutes), restart for running programs, and access to media libraries. It has deep integrations with streaming platforms and catch-up services like Joyn and RTL+ directly inside the unified guide. In 2019 the HD+ TV App also received the Judges’ Award for Most Impactful HbbTV Product or Service.
2019: HD+ TV App
Rather than HbbTV simply adding an application alongside the television manufacturer’s own interface, the OpApp approach enables the operator to deliver a much more complete and consistent service experience.
Five years later, the significance of this approach was demonstrated particularly clearly by Freely in the UK.
Launched by Everyone TV, Freely uses HbbTV OpApp as a core part of a television platform bringing together live and on-demand services, including delivery of live television over broadband.
Freely had an exceptional year at the 2024 HbbTV Awards, winning four awards. The judges described Freely as “a game changer for UK broadcasters and viewers with HbbTV at the core” and highlighted its cooperative approach to addressing fragmentation and searchability between services.
2024: Freely HbbTV OpApp
Freely returned to the winners in 2025 with Freely Account Linking. The judges praised the way it bridged broadcast and streaming through seamless account linking and enabled greater personalisation.
The progression from HD+ to Freely illustrates how operator applications have expanded the potential scope of HbbTV. The technology can support not only an individual broadcaster application but an integrated television platform spanning multiple services and different forms of delivery.
Discovery enters the AI era
The 2025 Awards also provided a glimpse of another potential step in the evolution of content discovery.
3Cat won Best Use of HbbTV for Content Discovery with its AI Agent for HbbTV. The judges described the feature as highly innovative and particularly noted that functionality being explored by IP-native applications and connected set-top box platforms was appearing so quickly on HbbTV.
It is an interesting milestone when viewed alongside the earlier winners.
Freeview Explore and the ARTE application helped viewers navigate richer catalogues of content. Later services brought streaming and broadcast content more closely together. Operator applications then provided the opportunity to control a much larger part of the navigation and discovery experience. AI potentially adds another layer, allowing viewers to discover content in new and more intelligent ways.
The underlying objective, however, remains remarkably consistent: making it easier for viewers to find television they want to watch.
Telling viewers what the red button can do
Building an innovative HbbTV service is only part of the challenge. Viewers also need to know that the service exists and understand how to access it.
This was particularly important as HbbTV services were being introduced into new markets, and promotion has consequently featured repeatedly in the awards.
A memorable example came from 3Cat in 2018 for the promotion of HbbTV services on its children’s channel Super3. The campaign played on the idea of a clothing button and the button on a remote control to encourage viewers to press red. The judges praised its “very high impact” and the combination of social media, web and HbbTV.
The same year also produced a very different approach from MediaCorp in Singapore. Its humorous Toggle Red Button campaign featured a child YouTube star and promoted access to MediaCorp’s Toggle OTT service through HbbTV. At the time, Toggle offered more than 12,000 hours of MediaCorp programming, giving viewers a substantial library of additional content behind the red button.
2018: MediaCorp Toggle Red Button campaign
Both campaigns addressed a challenge that was particularly important for early HbbTV deployments: communicating to viewers that pressing a button on their television remote could open up a much larger world of content.
Promotion continued to be recognised as services matured. LOVEStv won Best Marketing or Promotion of an HbbTV Based Service in 2022, while TV Nova won in 2023 with TN LIVE. The latter used blue-button pop-up messages on existing broadcast channels to allow viewers to switch directly to a live OTT broadcast.
Freely’s 2024 marketing award reflected another stage in this evolution. The judges highlighted both the reach of the launch campaign and the joint marketing activity with television retailers and manufacturers.
2024: Freely marketing campaign
The proposition being communicated had become considerably more sophisticated, but the underlying requirement remained the same: new television experiences only deliver value if viewers can discover and understand them.
From finding programmes to navigating hybrid television
Looking across the winners reveals how much the scope of content discovery has expanded.
Early applications enriched programme guides and opened routes from broadcast channels to on-demand content. Broadcaster applications subsequently created increasingly sophisticated streaming experiences, while operator applications demonstrated that HbbTV could support navigation across an entire television platform. Most recently, AI has begun to suggest new ways for audiences to find content.
At each stage, HbbTV has provided a bridge between the familiar television experience and new forms of content and delivery.
That evolution also explains why promotion has remained important. Whether viewers are being encouraged to press the red button or introduced to an entirely new hybrid television platform, technology has to be accompanied by a clear consumer proposition.
The award winners show HbbTV increasingly influencing not just what happens around a television programme, but how viewers find, access and navigate television itself.
In Part 3 of this series, we will turn to the commercial and technical ecosystem behind those experiences, looking at the evolution of HbbTV advertising, the growing importance of audience measurement, and the tools and technologies that enable increasingly sophisticated HbbTV services to be deployed at scale.
Become part of the story
The HbbTV Awards continue to recognise the products, services and applications shaping the future of hybrid television. If your organisation has developed an innovative HbbTV solution, now is the opportunity to join the growing list of award-winning services featured throughout this series.
Entries for the HbbTV Awards 2026 are now open. Find out more about the categories and submit your entry through the HbbTV Awards 2026 entry form.
The HbbTV Awards 2026 winners will be announced during the HbbTV Symposium and Awards in Barcelona on 18 November 2026.
