LIZ EUSTACE is the director of production at Trapeze, a Toronto-based company dedicated to the production of broadband entertainment. In this article she describes her travails of pitching new media strategies to traditional TV broadcasters and producers at the Banff Television Festival, which took place June 10-15.

AS its name implies, the Banff Television Festival is first and foremost a TV conference – one of, if not the most prominent in North America. As a new media producer, I was anxious about entering into an environment where some people would be excited to discuss the Internet and its relationship with TV, while others would simply and plainly just want me to go away – ‘We’ve gotten along fine without you, thanks very much.’

Back at my Toronto office, at new media panels I had attended and in discussions I’ve had, more often than not I was preaching to the converted. Banff, on the other hand, was an entirely new environment.

Here people were experienced in the production, distribution and broadcast of TV. I quickly recognized that my biggest challenge would be answering questions about the notion of convergence: ‘What does it mean?’ ‘Where is it going – and when is it going away?’

One of the biggest issues in Banff in terms of speaking with the TV community was language. Comparatively speaking, new media is still very much in its infancy. It doesn’t have 50 years of advertising models, or the Emmys, or the sitcom, or programs like ER, The Simpsons and The West Wing. In some ways its form and structure are still very much being defined. Even within the new media industry itself, titles like ‘technical guru’, ‘software evangelist’, ‘coder’, ‘hacktivist’ and ‘developer’ continue to blur a standard definition of the role people play within their organizations.

The challenge is then trying to succinctly communicate a language to people who are, in some cases, hearing it all for the first time. As the week progressed, I became acutely aware of those people who were interested in listening and those who would look blankly at me with an expression in their eyes that read, ‘You’re STILL here?’

Opening line

‘We produce original interactive content specifically designed for an online environment,’ was my opener. ‘We believe in the Internet as an exciting medium to tell stories, engage people on an emotional level and allow audiences to participate fully, through the interactivity distinct to the Internet, with the action online. This engagement compels users to invest with stories that can in turn be branded, repackaged and targeted to that particular demographic.’ (One need only look at the number of repeat users of chat rooms or online games to gauge how compelling interactivity can be.)

However, in any conference or festival environment, brevity is key and an ‘elevator pitch’ is often all you are allowed. For new media producers, there is no real elevator pitch – it’s more of a ‘let’s take the stairs to the top of the tower’ discussion. If I did have the opportunity to explain what my company did and my personal role and then throw in a pitch about ‘why this matters to you,’ then that was a hugely successful meeting, and usually a long one.

But the message didn’t always get through. During one meeting with the CEO of a large Canadian production company, I did have the opportunity to talk about my company, show our work and explain why this would be of interest to her. Unfortunately, at the end of our discussion, I had to smile as she reduced new media to a space that merely can be used as a strategic device for direct marketing – a solid concept, but certainly not the one I was pitching. She also thought that what I was really interested in was producing for TV, so maybe I should put the laptop away.

Not the best start to the week, but it propelled me to go to my next meeting a little more determined. Besides, my plane ticket said I was in Banff until at least Saturday.

Within the TV community, there does seem to be an understanding that the environment is shifting, and the need to consider the creation of an interactive component for a broadcast property is more prevalent than ever. In fact, international broadcasters such as the BBC have brought forward the mandate that any new program initiative must have an interactive component. So, currently, this need to produce is born out of necessity rather than desire.

To Canadian TV producers, especially those in the digital space, fulfilling CRTC mandates and attracting international markets means an interactive component is an obligation. Sitting down with broadcasters in Banff, I heard more than once that ‘we need to do something in this space, we just don’t know what.’ This sentiment doesn’t really inspire the motivation to get compelling productions made, whether for online or broadcast.

My very last Banff meeting was with a U.S. broadcaster. We sat at the Randolph Bar at 12:30 p.m., as the festival was closing down. I decided to skip the preamble I had been giving out in my other meetings. Instead, I just showed her our content. She laughed. She kept laughing. Then she asked to see more.

Afterwards, she gave me her card and wrote down many numbers of people based out of New York whom I should contact as soon as I got back to Toronto.

I left the meeting feeling overwhelmingly optimistic, running through the halls of the Fairmont Banff Spring Hotel. I was anxious to call my CEO to tell him that next year, we should book our registration early.