Multiscreen and multitasking are poised to cross the chasm to the mainstream, according to a pair of research reports looking into the phenomenon. At the heart is increased rollout from operators: nearly 115 million U.S. and Canadian pay-TV subscribers will be able to receive multiscreen services from their existing pay-TV provider by 2016, according to Parks Associates (News - Alert).

That same year, 90 million subscribers in Western Europe will be able to receive these services, the firm said, and more than 50 million subscribers each in Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific will have access to TV Everywhere multiscreen services.

"TV Everywhere has quickly become a standard offering for pay-TV providers, and now the key challenge facing them is how to monetize these services," said Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates.

The growth of TV multiscreeners also means a growth in multitaskers—offering a potential key to that monetization. Multimedia Research Group (News - Alert) (MRG) research data confirms that there are approximately 36 million mobile device owners (14 percent of US 13+ adults) who use their smartphones and/or tablets in association with the TV programs they're watching at any given time. This behavior is expected to grow to 114 million (54 percent of 13+ adults) users in the U.S. by 2017.

Consumers will also soon be using their mobile devices for first-screen viewing of video more often. While 55 percent of smartphone owners don't watch mobile video today, mobile viewing in the U.S. is expected to grow from 77 million users in 2012 to 129 million users in 2017.

Down the road, people who are using a second-screen device to view or control content related to what they're watching on the big screen, will spur continued use and development of recommendation engines, according to and will eventually be the primary users of personal program guides.

Discovery tools have evolved from the basic TV guides to interactive program guides (IPGs) with TV program schedules, expanded metadata, video-on-demand (VOD) recommendations and banner ads, the research firm noted. The next evolutionary step is the personal program guide (PPG) that delivers personalized TV schedules and VOD recommendations, multiscreen access and TV control, as well as personalized advertisements.

Today's recommendation systems already offer the technology needed to support personal program guides, MRG said. But the sheer magnitude of these forecasts as well as the growing number of on-demand titles being viewed, illustrates the tremendous impact recommendation systems will have on the TV industry over the coming years.