As I promised 2 weeks ago, here's a link to the second of our reports on the state of the TV sector. This one - Technology and TV: The continuation of a beautiful friendship covers the effects of digital on TV and was written for the annual IBC in Amsterdam.
As we point out, TV is actually the most digital of media and has been an early adopter of technology in the distribution and production parts of the industry. In many markets it's not even possible to receive an analogue signal anymore and yet commentators still predict that technology advancement will be responsible for the demise, rather than the growth of the TV industry.
Personally, my favourite chapter is that on digital production. The specifics of this part of the value chain is invisible to viewers, but its impact on the quality of output have been huge. Take the BBC's enduringly popular Doctor Who as an example: a show that used to have to make a feature of its terrible effects, now deploys almost Hollywood standards of FX in every episode.
That's just the visible changes. Moore's Law has also vastly reduced the cost of non-differentiating facilities like edit suites, studio consoles and the like, enabling more money to be spent on differentiating capabilities... like talent, for instance.
And there's the crux of the dilemma. It doesn't matter how much you spend on fancy digital tech; if you haven't got the creative talent to script, direct, shoot and produce it, you'll still have a bad product. The UK has plenty of the latter, which is why the future of our content industry is assured for the long term.
As we point out, TV is actually the most digital of media and has been an early adopter of technology in the distribution and production parts of the industry. In many markets it's not even possible to receive an analogue signal anymore and yet commentators still predict that technology advancement will be responsible for the demise, rather than the growth of the TV industry.
Personally, my favourite chapter is that on digital production. The specifics of this part of the value chain is invisible to viewers, but its impact on the quality of output have been huge. Take the BBC's enduringly popular Doctor Who as an example: a show that used to have to make a feature of its terrible effects, now deploys almost Hollywood standards of FX in every episode.
That's just the visible changes. Moore's Law has also vastly reduced the cost of non-differentiating facilities like edit suites, studio consoles and the like, enabling more money to be spent on differentiating capabilities... like talent, for instance.
And there's the crux of the dilemma. It doesn't matter how much you spend on fancy digital tech; if you haven't got the creative talent to script, direct, shoot and produce it, you'll still have a bad product. The UK has plenty of the latter, which is why the future of our content industry is assured for the long term.
Comments
Post a Comment