BANFF – If major broadcasters disagree over the direction of television over the next few years, how can any prognostications be correct?
ESPN chairman emeritus Herbert Granath began the International Broadcast Leaders session on Monday asking: “Is television dead?”
The most optimistic of the bunch was Corus Entertainment CEO John Cassaday, who said “Television has got more legs than people think,” pointing to the sheer numbers that still watch at certain times of day and can’t get enough of it. Not to mention the ad dollars that still pour in.
At the other end of the spectrum was a pessimistic Sir George Russell, deputy chairman of England’s ITV. “Whenever you talk about commercial television funded from advertising, it’s going to get much harder to make the television we know now,” he said.
Somewhere in the middle was Susanne Daniels, president of Lifetime Entertainment and Kevin MacLellan, president of Comcast Entertainment International.
In three years time, don’t look for too much change in how television is presented and consumed, overall. But in that time, what will begin to emerge for those consumers who embrace the on demand viewing model is “a group of branded type of TV networks where people tune to the brands rather than appointment-to-view,” he said, where people might pay to view content on a transactional basis or watch ad-supported content that is available to view when they want it.”
“Prime time appointment viewing is what really will change the most,” added MacLellan.
With that will come massive pressures on margins with broadcasters looking to keep costs down, passing along that pressure to producers, predicted Russell. And with young people invariable consuming their news in bite-sized chunks on their cell phones, “I think we’ll see the death of 24 hour news over the next few years… they’re not going to wait 15 or 20 minutes for a news item to come back around,” on a news channel, he explained.
With the pressure on income growing, added Cassaday, “The trend is less money to spend on television. Therefore, to make money at it, aim well beyond your own country’s borders. “I would be focussing on programming I could create for a global audience,” he said.
“The future of distribution is to have global rights,” said Both MacLellan and Daniels, so that income can be gleaned from as many sources as possible. “The money has to come from multiple sources,” he said.
“You have to commoditize everything that is not local,” said Cassaday, who added that partnerships are key to almost any large programming undertaking from Corus.
MacLellan added that while they may not be the most creative content, clip shows that can easily be translated into many languages (think Just For Laughs Gags or Top 25 Divas) are proving very successful. Comcast owns E!, for example.
“They might not be fun to make or be the scripted drama or ‘big shows’ but (we) sold them in every single market in the world.”
An additional piece of the problem is the ad avoidance technology consumers use.
Cassaday mentioned limiting the capabilities of personal video recorders so that consumers couldn’t fast forward through ads. However, Daniels wondered if that’s required in advance of the launch of commercial ratings coming in the States – not to mention her own PVR use.
“With DVR, I actually recognize the ads,” she said. Rather than leaving the room or change channel, fast-forwarding the ads makes her watch them, “even though you only see it for a second or two.”
Russell added that the rubber will hit the road with advertisers when “they can you tell which part of the 30-second advert has the biggest impact.’ When that can be figured out, he sees ITV “selling five or 10 seconds slots for much less,” than 30-second ones.
And if that is still too long? “I’d go subliminal,” he added, as a joke.
