With unit shipments of media tablets around the world expected to grow from current 17 million to 145 million in 2015, TVO is readying its foray into the space with its forthcoming video app players.

Since the pubcaster already holds digital rights to many point-of-view documentaries, and those, as well as its Big Ideas lecture series and kids shows, are all slated to make their tablet debuts before the end of the year.

The video streaming apps will also feature a live TVO schedule, as well as sharing options via Twitter on Facebook.

Bob Tarle, TVO’s director of innovation and partnerships, is careful to note that a one-stop shop video app isn’t in the cards: “Some of our documentaries have pretty mature themes, so we wouldn’t want to have TVO Kids series on that same app,” he explains to Playback Daily.

Everything digital at TVO starts in the IdeaShaker innovation lab, headed up by Tarle, who formed it in 2007 to test digital concepts and products without affecting the pubcaster’s day-to-day operations.

In the lab, Tarle and his team examine new and innovative content distribution models. “We [start by asking] ‘Should we go into this market?’ and if the answer is yes, then we meet with content folks and they say fill in the blanks,” he says.

The IdeaShaker lab also serves as a talent incubator, and Tarle was also instrumental in forming a partnership with Sheridan College’s Interactive Multimedia Graduate Certificate Program to employ grads in the digital media sector at TVO.

Recent projects that came out of the lab included My Canada, TVO’s first mobile app for the BlackBerry PlayBook, as well as early learning apps for BlackBerry smartphones Polka Dot Shorts and Flower Frenzy, apps for connected TVs and iPhone learning app, Melvin’s Marvellous Words, TVO’s first early learning mobile app for iPhones.