LOS ANGELES – The film Avatar was world renowned for its technological leaps forward in computer animation and 3D filming, but according to senior executives at The Cable Show on Wednesday, it would have been nothing without its fantastic story.
“It’s about storytelling. About engaging the audience and finding exciting, vibrant, thrilling ways to interest and involve an audience emotionally,” said Tom Rothman, president and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment.
“The fundamentals, storytelling, are the same… when watching Avatar or consuming and episode of Family Guy on a mobile phone.”
“Content is everything,” added CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves.
The panellists, which also included Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Netscape founder (and Silicon Valley legend and major Skype investor) Marc Andreessen, all (mostly) hailed the arrival of new platforms and services which allow customers/users/fans to view and interact with professional video content.
Moonves noted that the dialogue between tech makers and content producers and broadcasters has changed to one of mutual respect. The traditional media industry has recognized that the multitude of new devices and apps have led to an increased consumption in video content.
“We all know its possible to take every show and channel and make it available on every screen in your home and every screen you carry around,” added Bewkes. But to make people want to use those screens to watch your brands, that requires ongoing risk taking and “boldness in making original programming,” he said, lauding the shift in American cable channels programming to more exclusive, new shows.
“Wireless is useless if you’re hitless,” added Moonves, referring to smart phone video consumption.
Roberts noted that the ratings for all big name programming like the Super Bowl and big awards shows are way up this year as media and cable companies have been the “big enablers” when it comes to content viewership (Comcast has 80,000 hours of content available on demand, for example).
“The thing that’s different (and driving ratings) is the interactivity,” said Moonves. Viewers can use their phones or netbooks to communicate with each other and spread the word about what they like, leading to serious additional viewership – or even other benefits where, for example, record companies saw jumps in digital music purchases right when certain acts were performing during the Grammys.
“Just about every single piece of technology has been a friend,” said Moonves.
However, he later cautioned that the business model that works best – and will for the foreseeable future – is still the traditional one. A single episode of CSI, for example, costs north of $3 million to make – and that cost can’t be covered selling the episodes of the show on iTunes for a buck or making it available for free online. “We won’t be able to produce that premium content,” he said, adding that’s one of the reasons CBS is not a member of the Hulu.com consortium.
One major missing link in the move from gathering pennies to dollars from new media distribution is measurement, agreed the panellists. And that means tracking from where an online viewer came from, then where they go and whether or not they are linear, VOD or DVR viewers, too.
“Measurement… is not there yet and we need to count each eyeball, each viewer as an equal one,” and monetize them, added Moonves.
It’ll be easy for Comcast to measure such viewers should its new Xfinity remote prototype, which was also unveiled during the opening session, gain mass adoption.
Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien is in Los Angeles this week covering The Cable Show.
