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Redefining Broadcasting
I spent the last two days in Vegas at the National Association of Broadcasting (NAB) conference. It's a measure of the effect that digital technology and the Internet has had on the media business. Five years ago, there weren't many technology companies or tech investors at this conference. It was mostly TV and Radio execs. This year, the conference is overrun with tech companies and investors like me looking to connect the dots and see interesting new stuff.
It made me want to pause and think about the word broadcasting. Are these companies, radio and television companies, still in the broadcasting business? While many still associate the term broadcasting to mean "over the air" it's certainly true that less and less of the media we consume every day is coming over the air. Although with the advent of broadband wifi and wireless data, we may get back to that world someday soon, but it's going to be Internet Protocol (IP) based delivery.
Maybe more importantly, broadcasting implies pushing content down a one way pipe to a mass audience. And that's what many of the broadcasting companies want to do with the Internet. But I believe that the Internet is not and should not be a one way pipe. It's a two way pipe and so the question is will broadcasting content survive as a dominant model of delivering content to audiences? Or will a more interactive approach emerge?
People talk all the time about "lean back" and "lean forward" modes of content consumption. Lean back means a passive approach to content consumption (watching a TV show). Lean forward means a more active approach (browsing the internet). But does it always have to be that way? I am not sure.
But I am sure that the broadcasting industry is undergoing big changes. And they were in full bloom at NAB this year.
Comments (8) | Posted April 17, 2007 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
This is a very interesting topic, and in my mind this is the real heart of Web 2.0, as much as such a thing exists. I wrote that Web 2.0 has analogies to TV 2.0 and Radio 2.0. In all cases, the 2.0 version is really just the technology finding its own true nature.
Posted by: Scott Yates | Apr 17, 2007 10:05:00 PM
The two-way nature of the Internet changes the game, as does the fact that the Internet does not have to fit in a pipe at all. Pipes are constrained by upstream valves and pipe diameter - like TV and radio have been constrained by their owners and by the engineered capacity of the airwaves. With IP, the only constraints (assuming no development of last mile monopolies) will be the time each consumer has to find and consume content, and the ability (no longer artificially constrained by distribution pipe availability) that any producer or aggregator has to reach that consumer. Even in the lean back model, we can actively choose the exact content that we want to lean back and consume; our metadata and communities can help choose the content as well; we'll choose where, how, when, and on what screen we want to consume that content; and we'll switch between consumption and interaction modes in a heartbeat. On the content production, aggregation, distribution side, the same forces are at play. I think it is an understatement to say the broadcasting world is undergoing big changes; I think it is starting to spin in a new direction entirely.
Posted by: gzino | Apr 18, 2007 12:27:56 AM
Does that lead to redefining channels as well?
Posted by: Farhan Lalji | Apr 18, 2007 4:54:30 AM
Everybody talks user-generated video but broadcasting leadership teams find liability issues more concerning than falling revenue. At Cell-it we work with media web sites to incorporate user-generated video and create a two-way channel with their audience. Even the most motivate managers find c-level executives reluctant to engage their audience. Perhaps the CNN cell phone video on i-Reports will help leaders understand it's time to move ahead. Broadcast managers get it. Broadcasting leadership teams are still hung up on liability issues. Progress is coming but it may take new leaders.
Posted by: Steve Poley | Apr 18, 2007 6:46:17 AM
One thing I find interesting about radio is that it really CAN be an interactive medium when hosts involve the audience by encouraging them to call in.
We weren't calling it "User Generated Content" back then, but in my 20 years as a morning radio host (from 1983-2003) some of our best material came from our listeners.
Posted by: Bruce Barber | Apr 18, 2007 10:30:28 AM
The first step into the true IP world for broadcasters has not happened in the US market yet. I refer to PCCW in Hong Kong (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_40/b3953070.htm) or Iliad-Free in France (http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060224/news_1b24tv.html)
These players have shown that with the right pricing and a great product (Freebox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox) consumers will sign up and ditch or circumvent traditional cable.
Does anyone think Verizon Fios is really going to make a dent ? I would put my money on AT&T if they're smart and lower the costs for new broadband video aggregators e(see http://www.horrorchannel.com/). This is the true paradigm shift in the broadcasting business and Google's next moves with YouTube should be analyzed with this in mind.
Posted by: Frederic Guarino | Apr 18, 2007 12:45:57 PM
I'm sorry Web2Open/Expo was going on during the same week as NAB. I had to choose the historic W2Open.
There, actually, I hosted a discussion session on "Public Broadcasting and Web 2.0" (due to my National Public Broadcasting Interactive work).
The challenges traditional broadcasters face are big in the face of all this technical change. However, what people were talking about in my session was refreshingly simple:
People want as much content as possible, whenever they want it. On your DoTube series, you've also mentioned the ability to do "whatever they want" with the content as well. Time and time again, I hear that availability of content is more important than transportability.
Of course why just do one side? Well, technologically speaking, the more content you have, the more efficiency there is in having it in one place; nonetheless, if a project can afford it, I recommend going for quantity and transportability, it's just that I favor quantity.
... it's an interesting and on-going discussion.
Posted by: Nate Westheimer | Apr 20, 2007 2:31:51 AM
I agree, because soon, everyone will be blipd!
Posted by: Ty Graham | Apr 23, 2007 6:41:44 PM
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