At the BANNF TV Fest: Relaxing certain muscles leads to multi-platform success

By Susan Tolusso

BANFF – It will be October before Dawn Airey, the opening keynote speaker of this year’s Banff World Television Festival, starts her new job in charge of global content at Britain’s ITV Network, but she’s already excited by the prospect of transforming a traditional TV network so audiences can more freely use and “play” with its content. Funny and bold, Airey told a room packed with programmers, producers, distributors and protectors of copyright that traditional, content-controlling broadcasters will do much better in the emerging multi-platform environment “if they learn to relax their sphincter muscles.” She says there’s some evidence they’re...