Media rivals need to work together on digital content initiatives

Within the next year, some of Canada's fiercest media competitors will be working together on new media distribution strategies to maximize the benefits of digital content, said CBC's executive director of digital programming and business development Steve Billinger on day one of the NextMEDIA conference in Banff AB."If we put content on Sympatico and Canwest puts content on Sympatico, we're competing against each other on that service but Sympatico is building its business off of our content," he tells Canadian New Media. While partnering with competitors is rare among broadcasters, Billinger says "co-opetition" builds business and keeps revenues in the hands of the content owners. A good example is Hulu, the online broadcasting site formed jointly by US broadcasters Fox and NBC. "Both Fox and NBC had enough money to launch Hulu on their own, but it's smarter to partner," Billinger adds. The combined site provides a more one-stop-shop option than two competing services, which is necessary to compete against sites like Joost that licence content from multiple broadcasters. Although he couldn't point to any similar initiatives being developed in Canada right now, Billinger says "next year at this time some of the people up here will definitely be working together," referring to his fellow members of the preceding Canada's Digital Media Giants panel: Claude Galipeau, VP of interactive at Astral Media; Maria Hale, VP of content, product and services at Telus; Stephan Argent, VP of digital media at CTV; Dominique-Sebastien Forest, GM of digital media and e-commerce at Quebecor Media; and Kevin Bartus, VP of digital media at Rogers Media. Today, cooperation was limited to sharing digital media priorities for the next year and thoughts on the industry.Most of the executives identified streaming, video and audio content as a big priority for the next year. But Bartus said it can't just be "shovelware," or taking TV and radio content and putting it online as is. To that end, he noted that the hosts of shows like Breakfast Television can stay online after the TV show ends, either recording new web-specific content or participating in an interactive forum. Hale, however, said Telus wants to move away from the web-centric approach, making content totally interactive across multiple platforms and on-demand. Billinger concurred, advocating a "See it. Hear it. Have it." mantra. "If your distributing any digital content in the future where people can't have it the way they want it, be that a rental model or whatever, you're dead," he added. Quebecor is also taking an all-platform approach to its digital content future. "If you're missing one piece of the delivery puzzle, that's what we're going to focus on," said Forest. "Right now that's mobile." While some strategies are in place, most companies are still struggling to find the right revenue model. CTV's Argent said revenue generation, especially from an ad-based model, will never be fully realized until online audience measurement becomes more reliable. And standardizing an accurate measurement system, he added, is one initiative the entire industry should cooperate on. One area the media corporations are taking different approaches to is commissioning content. Quebecor, for instance, is devoting $5 million a year to digital content, but budgets from the other companies are much smaller, and often not as easily accessible. "The trouble is the triggering of the digital content funding is linked to television," said Billinger. "We need to change the thinking process. You can't solve the problem by doing the same thanks that caused the problem."

Media rivals need to work together on digital content initiatives

Broadcast | June 7, 2008

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