C M Y CM MY CY CMY K V I D E O • A G E SE P T E M B E R/ OC T O B E R 2 0 1 2 54 (Continued on Page 56) (Continued from Cover) Next Big Thing it will undoubtedly be ‘TV Everywhere.’ Although this has been talked about for a long time, pay platforms are now making real progress toward making their services available everywhere. In fact, with the great screens on tablets and ever-increasing broadband speeds, the only real obstacle is the resolution of the discussion regarding rights, and here too, meaningful progress is being made.” For Claire Tavernier, senior executive vice president of FMX and Worldwide Drama, Creative Networks at FremantleMedia, “‘The Next Big Thing’ in the global television business will be the decoupling of the television set and television content.” She noted that, “In the past, the word ‘television’ has been used to mean both the set and the content that played on it; in the future that symbiosis will break down as the set becomes much more multifunctional, and content becomes much more multiplatform, migrating to many other screens and platforms.” Content isn’t the only thing that is changing — audiences are too. Michael Shepard, president of Canada’s Thunderbird Films, pointed to a Kaiser Family Foundation study that “shows eight-to-18-year-olds watch significantly less television than older generations, only 26 percent of this group watch 20-plus hours of television a week compared to 49 percent of the rest of the population.” Echoing Cohan’s comments on the importance of both tablets and everincreasing broadband speeds, Shepard said, “in developing countries, mobile broadband is often the only form of available online access.” He pointed to a prediction in Ericsson’s Traffic and Market Report — On the Pulse of the Networked Society, which predicts that by 2017, 85 percent of the world will be covered by high-speed mobile networks. Cohan and Tavernier may be in basic agreement as to the most important change on the horizon, but they imagine very different consequences flowing from it. Cohan has no doubt that, “Pipe owners, including those who will own the new pipes, will always want great content.” But for him this raises a key issue: “The question is how will that great content be delivered? Creatively it will be a very different world. For instance, in this new world what will be the meaning of the word ‘season?’ The answer to that will have very great significance for arcs.” Although Cohan acknowledged, “In the recent past there has been a lot of talk about how producers would have to produce radically different forms of content for the different screens, this has now largely receded and there are two key reasons for this. One is that the changes took a lot longer to come about than had been anticipated, and the other reason is that, by the time they had, the pad had arrived. But, make no mistake, we are just starting to scratch the surface of something that we have been anticipating for a very long time — and there will be changes.” For Tavernier, the future “offers a lot of opportunities as well as some challenges. TV’s traditional business model is shifting very rapidly, and there is potential for it to break down. With this shifting business model, FremantleMedia has the opportunity to build a much more direct relationship with the consumer, which could lead to alternative sources of revenue,” she said optimistically. “We see digital extensions as having three primary objectives; monetize the audience, retain the audience, attract new audiences. Any activity we engage in needs to have a measurable impact on at least one of these dimensions, although many work on more than one level. Digital platform also allow us to initially try new ideas and content on a much smaller scale, and then to grow them as they prove to be successful, as we have done with our YouTube cookery channel ‘Sorted’.” Barney Shingleton, head of Entertainment at Zodiak Rights, believestherecentmovebyYouTubeinto original commissioning foreshadows some serious changes, calling it “a major development from YouTube’s perspective.” But he insisted, “it also has possible significant consequences for our industry. Working with YouTube is very different from working with a broadcaster — much more hands-off.” Shingleton echoed some of the comments Tavernier made, pointing out, “Although it is not as much money as working with a broadcaster, it is still a decent chunk of change and, more importantly, it gives the producer a much more direct relationship with the advertiser, which could have longer term implications.” But, unlike Cohan, Shingleton believes, “The content itself will inevitably be very different. There is a world of difference between making five-minute pieces for YouTube and a long running 24-minute daytime series for ITV.” For Shingleton, this “raises other questions such as, what sort of originally produced content will work on YouTube? And whether it works or not, will it have a value elsewhere?” Illustrating the importance of the questions he asked, Shingleton pointed to Life in aDay, which startedwhenYouTube asked people to film themselves for a day and then upload the results, which were then professionally edited into a one-hour film. The BBC subsequently took the idea on and created Britain in a Day, now distributed by Zodiak. Some analysts, on the other hand, believe “The Next Big Thing” will be the changes that the Internet will bring to the traditional advertising formats, which is one of the key business models for television. Already some online TV outlets let viewers select which commercials they watch. Not only that, but users have the option to change a commercial while watching it. Plus, online television has allowed advertisers to choose demographics and even the number of viewers they want to reach in a particular promotional cycle. Even our editor, Dom Serafini, wanted to contribute his two cents to the discussion, deeming himself an amateur futurist. In his view, “The Next Big Thing” will be consuming television without the actual TV set. The sound and images will be directed to the brain, which will transform into what we hear and see. From the academic perspective, according to Charles Falzon, chairman of RTA School of Media, Ryerson University, Toronto and co-chairman of CCI Entertainment, “Our industry has always been driven by ‘The Next Big Thing.’ I would say, however, that the media business is actually a continuum, albeit a layered continuum, the core of which never changes.” Barney Shingleton of Zodiak Rights Charles Falzon, chairman of RTA School of Media, Ryerson University, Toronto and co-chairman of CCI Entertainment Claire Tavernier, senior executive VP of FMX and Worldwide Drama, Creative Networks at FremantleMedia We see digital extensions as having three primary objectives; monetize the audience, retain the audience, attract new audiences. Claire Tavernier
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