Is TV really "social"?

Reading about #TunedIn (http://www.gettuned.in/), a german startup providing (another) TV social EPG app, I am again wondering if especially the german TV-habbit will allow success for social interaction. For sure we are using our mobile devices and tablets while watching TV, but for now we are less using them to talk about the TV-content, then doing "other" things.

The approach of "Social TV" would mean I would be interested to interact with the TV-content and in parallel connect with my social peers. Analyzing my own experience I am having two TV scenarios:

1. I am watching TV concentrated and
2. I am interacting with my devices and "be social"

(I skip the third one that I interact with my wife or friends while watching TV)

Social TV apps would need to brake my use cases:

• add value that would let me use the device while watching concentrated

or

• getting my attention during my distracted TV-watching

In the first scenario you would need to have a different content and a TV-machine that would allow to le me "really" interact with the programme ... this might be game shows or quiz shows and could be a nice thing to exchange with my social network (e.g. draw something app).

For the second scenario I would need to have a push notification that gets my attention back to the TV + an added value that would still keep me in the "social app" to keep on interacting with my social network + a special (value adding) content.

TunedIn tries the contextual approach as many others failed before and provide information with media content and social interaction. In summary it is the same offering as a print TV-magazin, IMDB and Facebook are already offering me but merged contextually in one app .... NOT enough folks, as long as you do not have the chance to adopt the TV content.

I believe only TV-programm owner like RTL and SKY would have the chance to provide a true integrated social TV experience - everything else is too isolated and does not change my TV use case.