It’s nextMEDIA time again, when nearly 400 digital media mavens converge on Banff, June 6-8, to buzz about this brave newfangled world of ‘content creation,’ ‘multi-platform strategy,’ ‘convergence,’ and lord, here we go again, ‘viable business models.’

It’s a good thing that the reference points are becoming increasingly familiar, because the business they’re referring to is morphing with lightning speed.

‘Every year, while we tackle a lot of the same topics, the landscape is shifting quickly,’ says Mark Greenspan, director of visual media for fest organizer Achilles Media. ‘nextMEDIA really is reflective of the evolution of the industry.’

The conference is bookended by big-picture thinkers Bill Buxton of Microsoft Research — whose opening keynote takes aim at emerging trends relating to new technology and design — and the crossover keynote of Malcolm Wall, CEO of content for Virgin Media, who will provide a cutting-edge account of how ‘big media’ is taking on the digital world.

NextMEDIA runs just prior to the Banff World Television Festival (June 8-11), so half of the confab’s attendees are from the television world, and it shows in the slate.

Take broadband rights for television programming, for example. Since last year, we’ve seen a number of online rights agreements with many of the labor unions on both sides of the border, the most recent being between AFTRA and the Hollywood studios. And while geo-gating (limiting access to online content to certain territories) has, as a result, sprung up as quickly as you can say CSI, this development is actually great news for the industry, says Claude Galipeau, VP interactive for Astral Media. Because you can’t have a market in anything you can’t place a value on.

‘There is more production, there are more clearances, and there’s more of an understanding of the value of these products and platforms,’ he says. ‘There are more clear business models attached to it — principally they’re advertising-based — but once you have clear business models, you’re able to have a contractual discussion that leads to reasonable results for both parties.’

So with a panel like ‘The Buying and Selling of Convergent Digital Media Content’ on June 8, featuring Joseph Ferreira of CBS, HBO’s Stanley Fertig, ATTIK cofounder Will Travis, and Pierre Lelann of TribalNova, and moderated by Rita Carbon Fleury of the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, it’s no longer just theory.

As per usual, the conference is well-stocked with innovators, among them Jim Louderback, CEO of the Internet television channel Revision3. His talk, ‘Building a TV Network for the Internet Generation’ on June 8, promises to offer a refreshing paradigm shift for TV industry-ites.

‘The new media of television on the Internet is different from cable or satellite,’ he says. ‘Any new medium doesn’t ‘cow path’ the old media — you know, like how cows always walk the same path to get back to the barn. If you just shovel your video content online, you’re not going to be successful. You have to figure out how video online is different. By focusing 100% on the Internet, we feel we’re a little bit ahead.’

Revision3’s target audience is mostly people under the age of 30 who have abandoned traditional media. ‘They totally get it,’ he says.

Finally, it appears a general consensus on business models is emerging, with advertiser-supported venues being the winner for the time being, or as Louderback puts it, ‘So far so good.’

Not coincidentally, Greenspan notes, there will be an increasing number of advertisers in attendance and more on how to work with them, including a June 7 panel titled ‘Top Ten Things You Should Know About Building Relationships with Advertisers,’ featuring Ogilvy North America’s Doug Scott, James Cooper of Another Anomaly, and Jefferson Burruss of DDB, moderated by Trapeze Media’s Michael Kasprow.

For more on nextMEDIA and the Banff World Television Festival, check out Playback’s preview report in the June 9 issue. A complete schedule for nextMEDIA is available at: www.nextmediaevents.com