Winnipeg: And the winner, for Biggest Threat to the Broadcasting Industry That Might – Over Time and on Closer Inspection – Turn Out To Be A Really Good Thing After All, is…

(Dramatic pause. Rustling of envelope.)

…something like an 18-way tie between nearly every new product or service that has gone to market in the past few years, starting with new arrivals such as Google Video and video iPods, and on down the line to podcasting, the PlayStation Portable, PVRs and TiVo (again), video cell phones, satellite radio, WiFi, Blu-ray DVDs, blogs, HDTV (again), OhmyNews, and so on.

The annual convention of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters – held Nov. 6-8 in Winnipeg – was all about the future and how new technologies might change the TV and radio trades. But like any attempt to read tea leaves, there were no clear answers.

Branding is either a thing of the past or a broadcaster’s only hope of drawing an audience, depending on which panelist one chooses to believe. Current business models are either outdated or as timeless as the stars. The tipping point for New Technology A, B or C will be in 2010, or 2015, or just as soon as there are hockey rinks in Hell.

‘What can you say after a convention like this?’ said CAB president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell in his closing speech. ‘It’s not possible to sum up the themes of the last two days in a few simple catch phrases. The future that has been laid before us is simply too complex, too challenging, and too deserving of our careful respect to become a sound bite.’

And yet delegates responded, turning out in record numbers, roughly 600, to look at, if not into, the future. Does it work? And can it be monetized?

The ‘no easy answers’ rule was laid down in the keynote address by Dr. Andrew Lippmann of the MIT Media Lab, who reminded the room, with a smirk, that 20 years ago he had encouraged TV execs to ‘tear down the antennas’ and switch everything to cable.

‘We’re from MIT, we’re never wrong,’ he joked. ‘But sometimes we are a bit premature.’

Minutes later he noted, ‘The future is podcasting. Everybody knows that.’

The rise of personalized media – and the recently released video

iPods in particular – was a major talking point and, as they have since the advent of MP3s and Napster, TV execs were looking to radio for pointers on how to protect their business and how to meet the demands of hip, wired-for-sound-and-picture consumers.

‘These kids today, they don’t know what a groove is,’ as on a vinyl record, said Lippmann. ‘In 10 years they won’t know what a CD is, and in five years they won’t know what AM and FM is.’

Traditional channels, he added, are at risk because consumers can, with increasing ease, pull content directly from producers. Kids these days, they don’t care if they get the new Gwen Stefani video from MuchMusic, MTV or the digital underground.

Many complained during the panel talks that there is no money in podcasting, despite its breakaway popularity. Jim Wendorf – a VP with Philips Electronics and personal media panelist – noted that iPod users are still not using iTunes content, for the most part. They’re using illegal downloads.

Terry O’Reilly, of the sound shop Pirate Radio & Television, was also heard to complain that there is ‘no business model yet on podcasts.’

But Peter Miller, VP of planning at CHUM Limited, scoffed at the complaints and told the personal media panel that there is no need to rewrite the rule book. ‘There are only two ways to make money,’ advertising or subscriptions, and personal media will fit into one or both of them, he said.

Every media, someone noted, eventually finds its own efficiencies, just as radio has come to rely not on music but on strong local newscasts, weather and connections to the community.

‘This is the golden age of broadcast news,’ said Robert Hurst, news boss of CTV. ‘All these new platforms… that we are just about to launch on, are growing. People want more and more broadcast news, and that includes traditional platforms like radio and TV and these new technologies.’

Hurst was part of a panel about the future of newscasting, probably the most lively talk of the two-day convention, and was one of few CABers who voiced a strong yes-or-no, good-or-bad opinion about the new wave of media, dismissing blogs and fears about the bottom line while also warning against the ‘arrogance’ of traditional news organizations.

He also spoke up in defense of brands, reminding the room and his colleagues that, in reporting, one’s reputation and the trust of one’s viewers still counts for something.

‘You are in a unique situation… if you’re running a TV station or a radio station. You are sending reporters to interview the mayor, or the board of education, or the police chief,’ he said. ‘You own something, and you own something precious. And it has value in the community.’

www.cab-acr.ca