Versatile Amphibian

I was invited to speak at a DPA event on online video news this morning. Here's a synopsis of my session, which focused on the form online video news may take in the future. Video makes up about 60% of the traffic on the Internet. Outside of Asia, Youtube alone is nearly 20% of total traffic. TV viewing hours in Europe are holding steady at about four hours per day; in the UK about three quarters of consumers view the TV as their primary source of world news. So video remains at the core of the entertainment proposition in 2013; however it's worth reflecting that historically online and broadcast video have been profoundly different. TV is professionally produced, broadcast in high quality in a curated experience that consists of relatively small amounts of video. Online video, by contrast, is of generally low quality. It is produced by amateurs in massive volumes and is typically aggregated automatically on a small number of sites. This was the situation until Steve Jobs...

I was lucky enough to attend this year’s Royal Television Society Conference at the Barbican and am in the process of sharing my notes from the event. Here’s the second set, covering the digital Olympics and lessons for Rio. This was a panel discussion featuring Tessa Jowell (UK Government), Ralph Rivera (BBC Future Media), Cindy Rose (Virgin Media), Alex Balfour (Head of New Media, Olympic Games) & Mike Darcey (COO, BSkyB). As an aside, why is it that so many Heads of Digital in this country are from the USA? We have fabulous digital skills in the UK and I question the need to go abroad. Must be the accent. Anyway... Only 13% of UK citizens didn’t watch any Olympic coverage. 97% of viewing was live and the median viewer watched 2 hours per day. Quality was the most common reason given for watching on TV versus other mediums – why watch live online when live on broadcast is so much nicer. The BBC’s coverage was the most comprehensive ever. All sports were covered and availabl...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: Russian maps Internet, games provide refuge, eBay delivers, BYOD turns nasty and Apple Fancies pinterest competitor Digital media Blippar is getting more mainstream. Following a tie up with London’s Stylist magazine, the company managed to persuade 7% of readers to augment the magazine content using the application. They do need to be more integrated to really succeed, however. http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/seven-per-cent-of-stylist-readers-use-blippar-to-animate-mag A new magazine for self-publishers launched last week. Ironically, it isn’t self-published, but seeing as the US s-p market was $20-$30Mn last year, it should tap into a growing based of aspiring, amateur writers. http://www.inpublishing.co.uk/news/articles/launch_ebook_world_...

I spent last week in Dubai attending the Arab Media Forum and visiting with a number of local media and telecoms companies. Development of a large media – particularly TV and movie - industry seems to feature on the strategic plans of almost all Arab states, so I was interested in getting an impression of how they compare as well as a sense for how the Arabic media industry in general is evolving. A long (form) journey To date, Arabic media’s greatest success is to create at least one global news brand – Al Jazeera – which has been instrumental in expressing the Arab voice in the region and worldwide. The overwhelming sense I got in the this visit (and in previous ones) was that the desired next step was to have the same clarity of voice in long form content as they do in short form. This is particularly for engagement of the Arabic diaspora worldwide, who are currently poorly catered for. To achieve this, my view is that regional producers need to improve the overall quality of ...

Having written previously about how the proliferation of devices and device formats creates a complex supply chain problem for digital content distributors and retailers, I thought it was worth writing about how the production technology market is affected by the same trends. Post capture production was traditionally a business of tape-based cameras, consoles, decks, switches and related technologies for the purpose of content capture, manipulation, management and storage. It has historically been a hardware market with defined replacement cycles and, in the case of cameras, a lucrative ongoing revenue stream in tape sales. As editing became file-based and output formats proliferated, more attention focussed on the need to create automated workflows for content production and distribution (an integrated production system). This move to file-based media threatens the traditional post-capture technology model as increasing proportions of post-capture technology is moving onto software th...

I've been trying to get my head around the news that HMV are struggling - closing 10% of their stores in order to avoid breaking their debt covenants. It's not news that the shift to digital and increasing popularity of Play and Amazon hurt the traditional retail model, however I can't really understand how it can drive a retailer like HMV - a near-monopoly player on the highstreet to the verge of bankrupcy. I think the fundamental issue is that the core HMV stores provide a commodity retail experience - pile-em high and sell-em... not cheap enough. I don't buy CDs and games from HMV anymore, because the experience is so horrible - I'd rather get them from Amazon in bulk. Contrast this with Waterstones (also owned by HMV). Much to my surprise, I've started buying my books there again after nearly a decade of Amazon. Why? Because Waterstones stores provide a personal recommendation service instore, whether through the little cards they place on the shelf-ends or ...

Linda Jensen had some interesting things to say at IBC about HBO's strategy in Central Europe, which I thought were worth noting down. HBO's biggest CEE markets are Romania and Poland. Initially they just brought US content over into Europe, but now they’re making country specific versions of US formats e.g. In Deriva – a Romanian version of ‘In Treatment’. This corresponds to the strategy of many premium content producers – use great local content as a hook into imported fare An interesting characteristic of the business is that they have certain freedom to develop their own technology and product lines. They're launching HBO Go shortly – a broadband OTT product developed in-house, before the joint venture was bought out by HBO. This seems to fit with Linda's world view on content: “a subscribe once, use anywhere” model that is day and date independent and her view is that Europe is underdeveloped vs. US in online: eSell thru’: $580M US vs. $67M EU Online VOD: $100M US...