From TV Broadcaster to Multi-Channel-Caster

There’s a perfect storm brewing in television land. Changing media consumption patterns mean people watch less TV.  Advertisers shift money away from the screen to other media.  And to make things really interesting, both Googlewood and the cable companies are gearing up to disintermediate the broadcasters.  Time to pack up?  I don't think so.

TV stations who pro-actively embrace the new media consumption patterns can still outrun the new kids on the block in Tinseltown.  Below I’ve outlined three ways in which broadcasters can leverage their currently dominant position in the living room to secure tomorrow’s business.  Conceptually they’re not that difficult, yet they do require a (very) different mindset.

Think Customer Centric rather than Media Centric Content.  The majority of TV shows today still get produced, well ... as TV shows.  Only when they hit the screen and become successful the web, mobile and other machinery starts working.  This often leads to some innovative work like CSI's interactive game yet even these are still a side show to the main event taking place on TV.

As consumers spend more time online than in front of the tube, broadcasters must push producers to come up with cross-media concepts that compete for a share of total media-time, rather than just win the TV ratings.  Connecting to the more high-impact media will allow stations to demonstrate ROI on advertising and thus reclaim the budgets that are drifting away.

Negotiate multi-channel exclusives and put your weight behind them.  Even though no one really knows how it will look, TV viewing in the future will be IP-based and new entrants like iTunes, Google Video, Yahoo and AOL are playing this card all out.   

To compete tomorrow, TV stations need to become the consumers 360° media reference for their favourite content (be it online, in print, IRL or on their mobile phone).  In this they can – still - use their bargaining power with major content suppliers to make “multi-channel exclusive” deals, which cut short online competitors before they can truly emerge (if Jobs can convince Hollywood to give him Desperate Housewives, TV stations should be able to do so to).

Think outside of the branded entertainment box.  While I love the idea that in 24 “the good guys use Apple”, I wonder how that generates cash for the stations that air the show.  Broadcasters need to reclaim the branded entertainment arena by remembering the roots of commercial television.  Think back to the days of the soap when shows were produced together with advertisers, yet done in a way that people really want to watch.

Thanks to the infinite channel environment of today, it is even conceivable to leverage existing know-how in programming and production into new business opportunities by helping brands to become media in their own right.  Audi in the UK already has its own TV station, courtesy of Sky Digital, so why shouldn’t Hasbro have it’s own Children channel or Amazon it's own Book TV.  

In the digital media landscape, the game is far from over for TV stations, yet to win it may help to get onto the pitch in a more aggressive way.

As usual, if I've missed (part of) the point, or we are at risk of being in violent agreement, don't hesitate to comment ...

Commercial Broadcasters and the Internet: A Series of Posts

This is the first of a few blogposts in which I intend to focus on broadcasting and the internet.  They will be short posts as I don't want to rehash the usual stories, yet try and raise a few questions that haven't yet been covered elsewhere.  In the end, I'll probably bundle it in a report (if you want a copy, drop me a note).

If you want to have a look at real media innovation, these days public broadcasters are the place to be. 

Being euro-centric, think of the BBC, throwing hours and hours of classical music online.  Holland's "Uitzending Gemist" which is a portal where literally hundreds of hours of series, documentaries, talkshows, music programmes, etc. are available for viewing on line.  Ketnet Kick in Belgium, which increasingly starts blurring the lines between TV and PC, to the point it's hard to tell which-is-which.  And there is also that gorgeous phrase "martini media" (anytime, anywhere, anyway) which was actually coined by the director interactive of the BBC in describing their future vision.

Critics will point out that the reason they can do this, is exactly because they consider some of their government-money sponsored programming to be, well "public".  This while  the producers that supply Googlewood have to work hard for their money and carefully protect it from abuse by the rest of us unsavory internet consumers.

I would, however, argue there is also another reason.  This is that the management of many of these so-called "stale" public services actively promotes creativity and innovative thinking and provides adequate budgets to those who need to be creative.  And think of it, with 20% of European media-consumption time online, this makes sense.  On-demand viewing via IP is a reality and with TV, PC and other devices converging, the time to experiment is now.

I wonder when commercial broadcasters will follow suit?

How European Commercial Broadcasters can Still Beat GoogleWood

One of the biggest reasons why broadcasters don't throw all of the programming they buy online, is the complaint that producers don't allow the use of their content unless the broadcaster can guarantee that the programme is only watched in it's designated territory.  This cannot be done on the internet.  Or can it?

Come to think of it, premium sattelite TV, which has a similar difficulty to delineate viewership by geographic borders has solved this problem years ago.  If you buy your SkyTV or other premium channel, you get a little set-top box which typically contains a card or chip that allows you to decode the transmissions you receive.  As many Sky viewers outside the UK can testify, this little chip doesn't really care "where" you sit, as long as you've paid for the privilege to watch.  As a result, the sattelite channel in turn can guarantee the production house the programme cannot be watched beyond it's designated audience, so everyone is happy.

Online this can work in exactly the same way, by using digital certificates in which broadcasters simply give, sell, what-ever digital tokens allowing surfers in their region to identify themselves online in an undisputable way.  These tokens can even be used to decrypt broadcasting signals which effectively ensure that no one can watch the programming put online without the key.  Anyone who is naughty simply gets his key revoked. 

And considering we're not really talking about "fancy" digital certificates or DRM systems, the actual deployment should be quite affordable.

Commercial broadcasters who take this approach to "carpet bomb" their geographic terrain not only create a digital media opportunity beyond their wildest dreams, yet also build up quite an interesting wall against GoogleWood, iTunes and the likes who are aiming to disintermediate them.  After all, most consumers won't want to have fifteen of these certificates so it's going to be first come first served (in which the best content wins ... hey just like TV).

And even if Google Video takes over TV-broadcasting, having a captive audience of a few million certified viewers at least makes room for a very nice acquisition value ...