Blurry lines
Went to the European Media Leaders conference organised by PricewaterhouseCoopers this week in London. Some soundbytes I thought were worth noting:
"Yesterday's innovation is today's cliché," said Francisco Pinto Balsemão, chairman and CEO of Portuguese broadcasting and publishing company Impresa, as well as chairman of the European Publishers Council. He was speaking about how it's difficult to legislate in areas of new media because it's unclear how information on platforms like the Internet will be viewed in the longer term. [My take: true on one level—will sites like MySpace continue to attract people for example—but on another, surely overall use of the Internet will only grow from what it is today?]
"RTL is not in conversation with ITV at the moment." Gerhard Zeiler, CEO of RTL Group, on rumours that the Bertlesmann-controlled German broadcaster, which owns Channel 5, was interested in buying the UK's largest commercial television concern, which cable operator NTL is currently attempting to acquire. ["They'll die trying," was the view of one analyst I spoke to at the conference.]
"You don't always have to control the distribution channel" for a successful television business model, said ITV's director of television, Simon Shaps. He noted that although the core business in the UK is broadcasting-based, ITV concentrates on developing content alone in other markets like the US. He also said that it's not worth trying to get into distribution unless you can be a significant player. "In a fragmenting market, you need scale [to succeed] in distribution." [I suppose the biggest TV player in Britain would say that?]
"One thing broadcasters haven't done well yet is really good quality user-generated content," Andy Taylor, MD, Channel 4 New Media. [Ch.4 is trying to refute this themselves, with their launch of a new user-generated channel called Channel 4 Docs]
"The barrier of exit is very low online," Angel Gambino, VP commercial strategy and digital media, MTV. [ADD of the MTV generation comes home to roost…]
"The 30-second TV spot will probably not exist in the future, so the challenge is to create the new interface for advertisers to buy into," Chris Dobson, VP international advertising sales, Microsoft Corp. [Microsoft is creating creepy new ways of placing products in their new services—eg, in Xbox games, and in the video that will be distributed on their IPTV platform]
"There is so much money being invested on delivery right now that there's a big opportunity for more content," MGM CEO Harry Sloan. [He was referring to new channels like IPTV as well as new online delivery portals.]
"But there is a big bottleneck [too] in the area of major studio distribution," Sloan continued. "Unless someone distributes and markets a film in 3,000 of the top theatres, spending $20-30 million in marketin, how the hell will anyone know they want to watch the movie? No one does as well as a major studio in creating awareness. What don't we do well? Make movies."
"I like clear battle lines," Sloan told me. "When user-generated sites start to really sell content that will blur."
All in all quite interesting, although one attendee from Disney told me he thought by and large the conference was of "low quality." This was his take: "Too many buzz words [like social networking] are being used. People are taking their eyes off the ball. The big issues for companies like Disney are the ones Sloan from MGM brought up: how do you make the right content at the right price? How do you move into new countries and onto new platforms? NOT how do you have a relationship with a 17 year-old."
posted by ingrid @ 4:33 PM
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