Today’s new media producers have the-once-in-a-generation opportunity to define a new paradigm and lay the groundwork for the future of entertainment, information and lifestyle programming.

In these still early days of the new media, broadcasters and production companies are scrambling to adapt to the changing landscape of content distribution. Everyone has a different business model. And everyone believes their system is right.

Steven Forth is the ceo of DNA Media in Vancouver. For him, new media companies must keep traditional broadcasters close if they are going to succeed on the new playing field.

‘We believe that in the future, the Internet will be the prime, but not the only distribution medium for all forms of content. And we also think that each media will take on some of the characteristics of the other media. Given that, we feel that we need to develop relationships with the [traditional] broadcasters because they will be one of the prime creators of content for the Internet. And also, many of the broadcasters are going to be very involved in the distribution.’

dna, which concentrates on educational and lifestyle programming, believes the broadcasters should be thinking about the new distribution models that are sure to arrive. For dna, the managing of server farms (allowing for many simultaneous content streams) is not in their future.

‘If the broadcasters are smart,’ Forth begins, ‘one of the things [they will do] is manage server farms. They will perhaps acquire companies that do that. It’s the computing adjunct to the cable system.’

Rights, distribution

agreements

Before discussing the ways broadcasters are attempting to go interactive, Forth points out that broadcasters had better look after agreements pertaining to their outdated territorial-based rights and distribution models.

Forth expects territory-based rights deals to disappear over the next decade. ‘That poses a severe challenge to both the business models of Canadian broadcasters and many other Canadian cultural industries, and also to Heritage Canada and Industry Canada. A lot of Canadian cultural industries are dependent on the redistribution of international product [largely American product] as their core revenue stream. And if that is taken away from them, as it almost certainly will be over the next decade, they’re going to need a very, very different set of business models.’

In terms of interactive initiatives launched by Canadian broadcasters, Forth believes they’re finally coming up to speed.

‘I think the Canadian industry has made great strides in the last three to six months. It’s late in the day for them to be doing so. And I’m looking forward to a radical repositioning of some of these companies. I think that CanWest Global has some very smart business ideas in the area,’ Forth says, going on to explain that CanWest has yet to release anything.

Forth is concerned about the fact that Bell Canada Enterprises has just bought ctv. ‘The problem with that, is that neither of those companies really has any experience or ability to create online interactive media.’

Cancon conundrum

Another problem Forth foresees is the system of Canadian content. He believes Canada must ‘completely revamp the system by which it supports the creation of Canadian content. Basically, the system is broken. Telefilm, Heritage, the Canadian Television Fund and the recording industry must be completely rethought from first principles. And this should be done very, very quickly.

‘And also there should be an integrated policy for cross-content. For cross-media development. Right now, the current ghettoization is going to cripple the development of the industry in Canada,’ Forth says.

Overall, however, he believes the situation is looking up. ‘I think that a year ago I would have said these people are complete dinosaurs. But I think they’ve heard the wake-up call. I don’t know if any of them are ready to shed their guise of being broadcaster cable companies and emerge as international cross-media content companies. [But] that’s what they need to do.’

Tony Tobias, president and executive producer for Pangaea NewMedia in Toronto, is also keeping a close eye on the broadcasters and their forays into new media.

Pangaea, whose clients include radio broadcaster chum-fm, works to migrate the radio station to the Net. Tobias is proud of the synchronicity Pangaea has created with the live audio broadcasts.

‘While they’re playing a song live on the radio we’re able to actually enable the song, the label, and the artist to be displayed on the site, plus, call up from the database the appropriate album cover related to the particular song for impulse buying. Impulse buying is part of the whole strategy, of course,’ says Tobias.

Pangaea concentrates on content management systems for its clients, which it sees as the ‘premise of functionality.’

Interactivity is also important on the chum site. ‘The audience plays a role in choosing the play list. Also, personalization. When a client or audience member logs in they become part of the club.’

Pangaea has also had experience with television broadcasters. The company has done the live netcast of the Juno Awards since 1996. This year, during the week of the Junos, Pangaea attracted ‘between a half a million and a million unique visitors.’

However, to Tobias’ disappointment, ‘there’s never been any real funding for it,’ from the CBC or the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.

Even so, Pangaea produces the ceremony ‘as if it were a tv show. We have full hosting, commentary and interviews. It’s a legacy of what’s going on. And yet we’re still trying to convince people, including the Academy and everyone around it, that this isn’t supplementary or augmentation or just a promotion of things like the Juno Awards. This is a separate valuable asset.’

With this in mind, how close does Tobias think the broadcasters are to truly understanding how interactivity and the Internet will co-exist with traditional broadcast?

‘I still don’t think they quite get it yet. I think there are individuals that get it. But as a body… There’s still no discretionary funds, that I’m aware of, to be able to react to opportunities within the budget year, as opposed to waiting until the budget year is through. To be able to react is very, very important in this kind of breakthrough.’

Traditional television scheduling also creates roadblocks vis-a-vis the new media school of thought at Pangaea. ‘People forget. Why are there 13 [episodes]? It’s limited by space and time to a [traditional] broadcaster. Whether I do six, 13, or 15 – my Internet content is up 24-7,’ Tobias explains.

‘This is what gets me about things like the Bell Fund, for instance. The Bell Fund says I as a new media producer cannot access funds unless I have a broadcast component attached. And that seems pretty silly because the Web has a tendency to be a more valuable asset. And I can have a hit website without having a broadcast. So why can’t it be an either or? [Don’t] make it so that the new media is a second cousin to broadcast. It shouldn’t be.’

According to Tobias, a lot of organizations undervalue the Web component of their properties. He gives an example of one producer who seems to have given away Internet rights in order to obtain the desired broadcast deal.

Tobias believes that producer should have taken less money to nail down a broadcast deal and find another buyer for Web rights. He says this program could have turned ‘archaeology into education. It’s a chance to tie in with the 16,500 schools that are part of SchoolNet or the 3,700 libraries that are part of LibraryNet or the 5,000 urban and 5,000 rural communities that are part of community access programs, all linked together in Canada.

‘And this is where I was quite concerned for awhile about the Bell [New Media] Fund. The film and television industry, at least in perception at times, have appeared to look like they were appropriating new media as if it were an automatic extension to film and television. It is not! It should be treated as a brand new and completely separate asset,’ Tobias insists.

Sidney M. Cohen is president and executive producer for tvradio.com – an Internet network operated by Toronto’s Virtual Broadcast Corporation. The company, which launched in January at natpe, is creating content specifically for its Internet network of lifestyle and information channels. Cohen isn’t too concerned about what the traditional broadcasters are doing.

‘We’re not doing anything that they’re doing,’ Cohen says. ‘This is original programming. We’re not taking any of their stuff.’

tvradio.com tailors its programming for the Internet. It believes its dedication to the medium will give it a leadership position before broadcasters scramble to repurpose and ‘extend the brand’ of traditional television content.

Says Cohen: ‘If I want to watch a broadcast network, I’ll watch a broadcast network the way it was meant to be – on television with a bigger screen. [Our stuff] is made for Internet programming. This is intended for the close-up viewer. This is still a lean forward, sit at the keyboard and interact with this person [medium]. This is information, on demand, 24 hours a day. It’s a completely different model than watching Felicity on the Internet.

‘Some programs,’ Cohen continues, ‘don’t lend themselves to [today’s] Internet. The encoding doesn’t like a lot of fast movement. It doesn’t like a lot of panning and zooming. The lighting is unique, as well.’

tvradio.com feels it has another advantage over traditional broadcasters. It has its own realtime rating system. This allows the organization to avoid the kind of programming errors the big traditional networks (which can afford to make those mistakes) do. Every single day their global viewers tell them what they like and the company is therefore able to ‘better feed the audience.’

At Toronto’s Extend Media, one of Canadian broadcasters’ favorite Internet partner organizations, they have a completely different perspective.

CBC/AAC lead the way

Steven Billinger, president and coo of Extend Media, worked in interactive broadcast systems in the u.k. before joining Extend two years ago.

Billinger’s u.k. experience gives him the sense we are on the verge of a sports broadcasting revolution that will allow viewers to choose camera angles, watch replays and highlight packages during a live broadcast of a sporting event. He says the system, which is already available in Britain, is on its way to North America.

At Extend, Billinger also works with Canadian broadcasters to find ways to bring interactivity to traditional programming initiatives. Perhaps the best example is the cbc/Alliance Atlantis production of the drama series Drop the Beat.

‘The show actually continues in a completely different form on the Internet,’ Billinger explains. ‘I could imagine a day when people don’t realize there’s a tv show that goes with it.’

Billinger goes on to praise the Canadian broadcasters for their interactive initiatives. ‘I think that was pretty exciting for the cbc to do that [Drop the Beat]. And I think also that in Canada, [in] this recent round of [category] 1 and [category] 2 [digital] specialty channel applications – there isn’t one application that we’ve seen that’s not fully interactive. [The necessity] is just understood now.’

However, at Extend they realize things aren’t totally hunky dory in the Canadian system. Billinger points to the need for changes to the Canadian content system and says, ‘new business models have to be made’ if the industry is to grow up properly.

‘We will be – our goal is to become – the equivalent of a major media company in what we now call the new media. But in one year’s time, even right now, it’s just going to be a media space.’