Conventional media urged to change channels at ICE 07

The organization formerly known as the New Media Business Alliance - now Interactive Ontario as of March 21 - presented a two-part session at last week's ICE 07 event seemingly aimed at helping old-media broadcasters embrace the upside of letting go of total control over their content. The first panel in the series, titled "Alternate channels for media delivery content," sought to greatly expand the conventional notion of what constitutes a distribution channel.Case in point: the popular line of Webkinz toys from Toronto-based Ganz, which adds a twist to the traditional stuffed plush animal by enabling each toy with interactive online content, including a customizable virtual room. Moderator Steve Billinger, the CBC's executive director of digital programming at CBC.ca, asserted that such innovations are "channels" in their own right, and the panel demurred."It would be nice if I could stick my head in the sand and say it's a Web play, it doesn't have anything to do with what we do," said Corus Entertainment Inc.'s executive VP of Corus Kids, Scott Dyer. However, he added, products such as Webkinz are indeed content and thus compete with Corus in the business of providing entertainment and garnering audiences, "even though it doesn't run 22 minutes, it doesn't have commercials.""More and more toys are being bundled with content," observed Brady Gilchrist, executive VP, strategy at Ottawa-based branded entertainment firm Fuel Industries and head of the firm's BlueScience strategy division in Toronto. He added that toys and other entertainment products are in fact begetting television series and similar content, a process known as "brandcasting."More broadly, traditional broadcasters hoping to build a presence in consumers' minds with linear programming alone might find their ambitions dashed in the digital era. "The commercial television channel has sort of withered away as a brand," said Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. senior VP of digital media Claude Galipeau. Instead, the same content can bear different branding on a plethora of devices, leading most broadcasters to see such platforms as "highly accretive and additive," he said. "TV doesn't have to be on TV," agreed Dyer.Broadcasters also face increasing competition from past partners in the television value chain. Billinger noted that Philadelphia-based cable MSO Comcast Corp. "is not interested in anything that looks like a channel, or even a show." However, since they're far removed from the production business, companies such as Comcast are at a disadvantage compared to incumbent broadcasters. "Comcast can't stand on its own ," said Galipeau. "There's no way."Telus Corp. VP of wireless, broadband and content policy Michael Hennessy noted that "the core business is still the linear business," adding the content that goes on to be a hit on on-demand platforms usually originates in the conventional broadcasting world.And even Comcast may be similarly hard-pressed to build a brand using other people's content. "I don't really see my audiences saying to me, ‘I like the things I'm getting from Comcast," Dyer said. But Fuel's Gilchrist argued that devices such as personal video recorders put Comcast and Corus on an equal footing. "You set up the shows that you want, then you come home and you've got a network in a box," he said, illustrating the point that loyalty today is to individual shows, and not the network that originally airs them.Nevertheless, with all the upheaval and change, the overall business plan is still the same. "Our game is very much like the broadcaster in the past," Hennessy observed. " is to aggregate as much content on as many platforms...and deliver audiences to advertisers."The second installment in the series focused on developing alternate business models to take advantage of those alternative distribution channels. As such, the panel featured representatives from companies that successfully meld new media content delivery with the often-missing element of commercial viability.York Baur, executive VP of business development at Bellevue WA-based Zango, Inc., explained his firm's business model: provide unlimited free video and games, provided users agree to install proprietary adware that follows them as they wander through the Web and serves up contextual ads.Meanwhile, New York-based Heavy.com features original animated video content beside clips from major film and television studios. It's a mix that advertisers have found appealing, managing director Joey Jodar said, adding his firm is cash-positive and that, in the history of the Internet, only three organizations have had success with advertising-only online business models: the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which sets standards for Web display ads; Google Inc., thanks to its powerful search engine; and Heavy.com.But Jodar said audiences are also starting to feel alienated by companies using the Internet as a means of distributing content, largely due to their aggressive efforts to monetize their content online. That pushback is most felt in the popularity of non-commercial sites like YouTube, which despite its acquisition by Google last October still retains almost an anti-corporate feel.Heavy.com makes money from its content by inserting interstitials once users click to view a video. However, Jodar said, he and his colleagues "don't compete with YouTube, we take our hats off to YouTube" for providing a model for building an audience for online content and for opening doors for companies such as Heavy.com.Another firm represented on the panel - Mississauga ON's BiteTV - has evolved over time from an interactive specialty channel to encompass mobile content and more. President and CEO Jeffrey Elliott noted that an ever-growing portion of the channel's revenue - more than a third at present - comes from distribution on platforms other than conventional broadcasting.Pointing to a recent deal with the Joost video network pioneered by Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Elliott said it makes no difference what platforms carry BiteTV's content, as long as BiteTV sees revenue from the deal.Echoing observations about Comcast made during the first panel, Elliott noted that BiteTV's future growth lies in its ability to produce content, and not just act as a distribution conduit. "It's our mission to own more content, and not buy it," he said.

Conventional media urged to change channels at ICE 07

News | 03/26/2007 8:38 pm EDT

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