What is the future of television in the interactive era? Is the Internet a tool that will help the traditional broadcaster drive viewership and add value to its audience experience, or does it threaten to take over the market from them? These are some of the questions on the table at Convergencetv.com, a Playback-produced conference scheduled for Aug. 9-10 at Toronto’s Hilton Hotel.

Convergencetv.com will assemble some of today’s key players in new media for nine sessions that will try to define the present and future roles of the tv set and the home computer.

Some argue that with ever-improving streaming video technology and the forthcoming arrival of digital tv and its interactive potential the functions of these two appliances are becoming indistinguishable. Others believe that after a hard day at the office, you just want to crash on the couch and be entertained – you don’t want to interact with your remote control beyond selecting a channel and turning off your brain.

To turn on our brains before the conference, Playback presents the Convergencetv.com Report, which looks at these very issues. The Internet is a new delivery tool many of us have in our homes, and it provides a fresh medium for people to get their messages out there, no broadcast licence required. What will drive traffic to your site is the quality and nature of your content, which provides a challenge to the traditional broadcaster and Internet startup alike.

There are no absolutes in these nascent days of convergence tv. ‘It’s an ongoing story,’ one Internet company executive told us, ‘but it’s a fun place to be.’

www.convergence-tv.com

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The biggest difference between Global Media and many other Internet companies is that it focuses on extending the reach and brand of its broadcaster clients as opposed to competing with them as a portal itself.

‘We don’t think that’s a winning strategy for a broadcaster,’ says Global Media president and ceo Jeff Mandelbaum. ‘We offer a private branding experience that really protects [a broadcaster’s] audience and market reach. The other thing that is different is that our ad and e-commerce revenue is shared with all our broadcast affiliates so that both of our revenue models scale and we’re both motivated to drive maximum traffic to that site.’

The company launched three years ago to provide customized solutions for brand extension, streaming media, integrated advertising, and e-commerce storefronts, targeting major broadcasters in radio and television, with film production and distribution an emerging market.

Global Media has 110 employees, most of whom are located in its Vancouver headquarters. It also has sales offices in New York and Los Angeles, with plans for additional openings in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The company streams video over the Global Media Broadcast Network, which uses RealNetworks technology, and it has built frame-relay technology with mci that provides a more reliable signal by bypassing Web congestion. In addition to supplying network management software, Global Media also runs a network operations centre out of Vancouver that provides a high-quality signal.

The GlobalMediaPlayer is the platform with which the company delivers both content and custom-built interactive elements, including chat, e-mail and one-click e-commerce ordering.

Mandelbaum points to Global Media clients such as AccuWeather.com and Paris-based video content provider fashiontv.com which have come to the company from competitor broadcast.com, a division of Yahoo!, for Global Media’s revenue-sharing structure. He says those clients have come to see broadcast.com as a ‘cost centre.’

‘If you want to put streaming on the Internet, there are a lot of different networks like [it],’ he says. ‘But people are coming to Global Media because it’s the company that actually writes them cheques.’

Another Global Media partner is l.a.’s ClassicMovies.com, which is looking to be a primary global destination for classic programming. ClassicMovies.com recently signed exclusive Internet rights to the entire 700-title Columbia Pictures ‘classic’ movie library. Global Media is streaming trailers on the site as well as offering consumers one-click ordering for vhs tapes, dvds and professional film rentals.

‘What we have done [together] to enhance viewing, drive listening time up and drive loyalty is create a spin-off on the site called Classic Movie Radio. The music out of classic movies is something people have a great affinity towards, so ClassicMovies.com supplemented its consumer experience by recently adding radio. I think that’s a good example of different types [of media] converging to offer a richer experience on the Internet than would be possible through traditional broadcast,’ says Mandelbaum.

Neither Global Media nor ClassicMovies.com is streaming long-form content yet, because, as Mandelbaum notes, the image is currently not broadcast quality.

He expects long-form content will have a tremendous future on the Internet, however, with the wider availability of broadband.

‘When the home of the future consists of multiple computers connected over a wireless land with a main pc being the control centre, when you have a broadband delivery vehicle where you can get programming when and how you want it at reliable speeds, I think full-length motion pictures will make perfect sense,’ he says.

Mandelbaum hears from film industry insiders that motion picture distribution costs can account for 60% to 65% of a movie’s budget, so the arrival of broadband and high-quality streaming will provide a very attractive cost-efficient alternative.

Global Media already has broadband distribution deals in place, most notably with Switzerland-based Fantastic Corporation.

‘What we’re doing is putting our player on top of their end-to-end satellite delivery system so they’re able to transmit direct to the home at over one megabit speed and offer a real broadband experience,’ Mandelbaum explains. ‘That’s going to open up a whole new world where video is among the fastest growing types of content.’

Another Global Media project Mandelbaum is particularly excited about is its national sponsorship of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, whose tv broadcast last year attracted 75 million viewers. Over Labour Day, Global Media will webcast the entire 22-hour live event using the same signal carried over the ‘Love Network’ of 220 tv stations.

The enterprise is being billed by Lewis and the mda as a ‘Web-enhanced telethon’ offering video-on-demand as well as the opportunity for visitors to chat with mda experts and have questions answered online during the telethon. Viewers will also be able to interact with other viewers and get further information about local mda events.

Mandelbaum stresses the importance of the site driving viewers to the local tv broadcasts.

‘The [tv] stations want to know the Internet is not going to actually replace their position within the Love Network,’ he says. ‘They want to see [its growth] be incremental. We’re going to be [seeing] in this mda-branded Global Media Player a great opportunity to build a much richer experience and also to cross-promote the television experience.’

Mandelbaum says Global Media’s main incentive behind the mda partnership is to help drive donations for a worthy cause. (It has designed the site with an easy one-click donation button that will be prominently displayed.) He also points out that the venture will serve as a model of a webcast providing added value and leveraging interest between the two media.

‘I think what a lot of people are going to do is have the show on [their tvs] for a long time and have their pcs on and go back and forth between the two,’ he suggests. ‘To me that’s what convergence is. It’s not necessarily replacement, but it’s both [media] acting parallel to and adding value to one another.’ *

-www.globalmedia.com

-www.ClassicMovies.com

-www.mdausa.org (Muscular Dystrophy Association)