I was at an 'industry dinner' last week. What a hideous phrase! I had been enticed by the prospect of free food served at an exclusive perch - the 39th floor of the 'Gherkin' building (30 St Mary Axe) which is that strange sex toy-shaped building in the middle of the city of London.
The event was hosted by a magazine and sponsored by a consultancy but it was pretty good. The speakers knew their stuff and delivered it eloquently as we munched and the debate over coffee got lively.
Ettiquette maintains I cannot divulge personalities or revelations, but the whole thing resembled a trad media sumptuous 'last supper'. One of the world's biggest entertainment and consumer electronics multinationals was represented, as was the troubled private equity owned record label, one of Britain's terrestrial television broadcasters, the IPTV arm of a major telecoms company and of course me, the participant representing Britain's newest multimedia publishing group - Bauer Consumer Media.
It was the last night of Emap Consumer Media. I'll leave my views of how we got to that point out of it, but I made the salutory point that consolidation may be the inevitable outcome for all those trad media companies who cannot figure a way to prosper on their own.
Television was heavily represented and it faces the greatest current threat from newcomers using the internet for distribution. What used to be extremely difficult and expensive - content scheduling and distribution - is now easy and cheap. Take WorldTV for example. Someone can compose a schedule of TV using a simple search and playlisting tool - even insert their own links and adverts if they want - in a matter of minutes.
Distribution is handled for them as a service so they need no technical support. We are going to see the rise of semi-professional tv distribution networks that offer a higher degree of service than something like Youtube, but affordable for the long tail. In fact, Brightcove (who we use at BCM), Maven, Roo and the like are already there.
Bringing this from the PC to the TV needs little more than a browser and wi-fi built into the TV. How many years (months?) will it be until we see a TV remote with a 'Google' button and the small amount of software and hardware built into the device. For 20-30 pounds extra a TV set will be enabled for the internet TV revolution. The future will be in-set rather than set-top.
The respite position of the trad media companies is that it will be about content. People are still going to want to see 'quality' programming and much of that will be denied to internet television channels. This is okay to an extent with the mainstream. Most of us can differentiate between good and poor quality drama.
The problem comes with niche interests. Metropolitan media execs scoff at what they see as peripheral programming like DIY, hobbyist and niche sport programming. But there is a huge unsupplied demand for that kind of subject matter video which event cable and satellite spectrum cannot support.
These tastes will inevitably be catered for, and attract niche advertising. What that will do is eat further into the overall TV viewing time of the population for mainstream. It threatens indirectly, rather than directly, the business models of the existing TV networks. They are not competing for the same ad clients, but fighting over viewer attention.
The second problem is that while affection for specific programming will remain, affinity for specific channels will - is - fading. The channel is an editorial construct, a historical artefact from the days of a rationed spectrum. It has the familiarity of spam and will continue to be available as such. But in future scheduled television will be to video what radio is to our music collection.
There are no answers yet to some of these challenges. No clear win strategy. Trad media is hand-tied by regulation which belongs to a similar age of post-war spam. The regulators have no intention of de-regulating themselves. The TV one OFCOM, even had an iniquitous proposal to promote itself to a multimedia regulator - a proposal thankfully squashed by the government. There is no clear answer to piracy, which has gone from being the pastime of career criminals to become a locust-like feature of general behaviour. I know a couple who bring up their young son with impeccable morals and behavour but don't relate that to their own downloading of movies - which can take days at a time!
The most apparent danger is that the middle ground is squeezed and we all suffer. The common or garden but well made cop shows and general programming with modest viewing figures and average budgets.The blockbusters will still command huge audiences and rewards (though the risks in making one will increase) and the lower end - from steam railway channels to amateur porn- will thrive on a shoestring. The danger is we may lose what's in between.
