Tag: about-the-author

Independent Action

It’s a tough time to be an independent production company. In fact, it’s always a tough time to be an independent production company, especially a small one. Here’s the Editor of Broadcast magazine writing online: “Almost half the respondents (44%) are letting staff go and almost two-thirds (62%) are cutting the number of production staff. Some 76% believe the repercussions are already visible on screen while a massive 95% believe the impact will be clearly visible within the next 12 months.”

But the reality is that it’s never been a better time to be in video production. The demand for video is going through the roof as it becomes a much more mainstream mode of communication. The problem is that in the new video world the clients are corporate and they need something more than the ability to produce video and tell stories; they need marketing skills and the ability to target and analyse audiences.
In fact, probably the single biggest step independent production companies need to take is to get in touch with their audiences. Indeed, the future security of indies will depend on their ability to build direct audiences and then deliver these to marketeers, broadcasters or service operators.
It’s not very different to the effect that blogs have had on the publishing world where the traditional arbitrators have been disintermediated.


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Independent Action

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Is Media Bankrupt ?

Has media run out of ways for paying for itself ?

More bad news from the local newspaper industry has led me to wonder if the decline of media is terminal. Commercial TV is a basket case in the UK. All broadcasters are suffering terribly. The only bright spots are taxed TV (public service broadcasting) or premium pay TV (BSkyB).
There has been no perceptible shift to Freeview from Sky or Virgin, but I suspect that this will be a long burn and we will begin to see this becoming an issue. But the decline in advertising is sure to hit Freeview and Freesat as well.
This doomsday scenario is new to TV – the proverbial ‘licence to print money’ medium. However, they are actually nothing more than everyday problems for other mature businesses. 
The challenge is to improve marketing and ‘discovery’ – that is find more customers, retain them, and then to develop new revenue streams from them. this is exactly hwat made Google the powerhouse it is (discolsure: my better half is a Google exec). 
Ad agencies and online banner exchanges are a poor way of making money for an Internet TV channel. They are far better off finding a core sponsor, introducing an aggressive ecommerce service and selling ads based on a valuable demographic, perhaps favouring CPA (cost per acquisition) or CPC (costs per conversion) over CPM or CPI.
Marketing media has been a very specific skill over the past decades, but doing this job in the future is going to require a whole new skillset and a different breed of executive.
The stakes are lower, the barriers – and cost of entry – are now a fraction of where they were, but the revenue potential is also very different.
Media isn’t bankrupt, but it’s going to take a lot to get back the money that has moved to Google. One very consoling fact is that even Google has failed to monetise YouTube…
Media may not be bankrupt, but it needs to change its models..

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Is Media Bankrupt ?

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The Future of Television

I’ll be speaking at The Broadcast Video Expo at London’s Earl’s Court 2 at 10.30am on Thursday, 19th February. I hope to meet you there if you can make it. 

Unlike my billing, which is called IPTV Everywhere, the actual subject of my talk will be The Future of Television.

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The Future of Television

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The Anyscreen Era

A new buzzterm – three screen strategy. I think this means the ability to watch the same content on TV, PC and mobile/cell.

It is an inevitability. But the premise is flawed. Three screens ? What about the cab on the way home, the fridge, the portable TV in the kitchen ?
Anyscreen strategy would be a better term.
In this recessionary time there are surely two things which will proliferate: video and screens.

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The Anyscreen Era

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Unscheduled Lives

As I try and manage my ever more complicated life, the parallels between the way we live our lives – especially in these uncertain times – and the way we now consume our television struck me.

Just as the regime of the traditional working day changes to a less, patterned, some would say chaotic, existence, so our viewing patterns are less consistent, less predictable; we time shift and pause, our attention span lowers, our life is lived in bite sizes.

Increasingly what we seek is order, interpritation and form.

What we need is for the television to understand us, what we're interested in and even what mood we're in.

In a cluttered, time shifted TV world

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Unscheduled Lives

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