Now that everyone is sufficiently recovered from their dose of fresh mountain air, brilliant sunshine and delightful wildlife encounters, let’s look back at some of the key takeaways for the screen business from the conference side of the Banff World Media Festival.

Brands are hot: Like Chris Hemsworth, brands are a hot commodity right now: media companies want to be them and producers want to be with them. Panel after panel asked media execs to discuss how they were circumventing loss of appointment viewership via new approaches to relationships with advertisers. Shaw Media execs Barb Williams and Christine Shipton already had their answers in the bag from the upfronts the week before, staking their claim in the “we are open for business with brands and brand integrations” space. Producer takeaway: Start integrating brand consideration into the idea phase of project development. However, Shipton did note that revenue models for brand-integrated series are still nascent: “There’s always a debate about who sees the money.”

Which brings us to…

The terms of trade are open: In a Monday panel, the CMPA’s Reynolds Mastin revealed the CMPA’s appeal to overturn the CRTC’s decision to end Terms of Trade as a condition of licence for broadcasters was recently dismissed by the federal court. Although the CMPA clearly does not see that as the end of the story – as fellow panelist, lawyer and entrepreneur John Barrack, noted “If you assume we still need a Canadian broadcaster to trigger funding, then yes we definitely need [Terms of Trade”] – the broadcasters’ views varied from the pragmatic to the strong. So if you have a cup, here are your tea-leaves: CTV’s Phil King: “I can’t see it changing that dramatically;” Rogers Media’s Collette Wilson: “[this is] the first step towards distributors becoming owners and content creators and partners of a true nature.” The CBC’s perspective, from its head of business and rights Lisa Clarkson, as told by Heather Conway: “[Clarkson] said stop thinking of owning and renting: think about it as get the right rights. It isn’t about, do I own this content [or] do I rent this content? It’s what do I intend to do with this content, what rights do I need and how do I secure them?” Shaw Media’s Barb Williams: “The new conversation suggests that we will be able to own a lot more [shows] if we choose to go that way,” while colleague Shipton noted: “The truth is we all need to monetize the work we do…I have great expectations of it being a healthy relationship going forward.”

Regardless of who owns it…

Enough with the Game of Thrones: Possibly the best rant came from CTV topper Phil King, when asked (once again) why Canada doesn’t solve all of its problems by making its own Game of Thrones: “Game of Thrones was an anomaly,” he said with exasperation. “I think it’s extraordinarily naive when people say, ‘why aren’t you making Mad Men?’ You’re talking about 10 shows out of the 10,000 shows ever made around the world that has got to that level… Will we ever get to that level? Possibly. We have the talent. But it takes talent, plus timing plus budget, plus a whole bunch of other things. [Mad Men] is a niche show – it just is. Would that have worked on one of our specialty channels? Perhaps. We would have gotten 300,000 people, that would generate $30,000 an episode in ad buys. That’s not enough to pay for it. We can create quality, we can, but you also need mass audience to pay for these things. We’re in Canada. We’re a small player in the media world and we are beside the biggest by far. We have, I would argue, our version of that called Orphan Black. It wins awards, phenomenal fan base, but reality is it does 300,000 to 400,000 viewers. It’s not as easy as ‘Just create a Game of Thrones!’ and all things will be solved.”

Which brings us to….

“Boring” is big business: When you come home from work or are looking to wind down, you don’t always want a side of gratuitous violence with your Taco Tuesday. And the sour cream and jarred salsa of TV is the procedural. As Jens Richter, CEO of distributor FremantleMedia International explained, domestic content is taking up most primetime inventory on free TV channels around the world: locally made drama and local news. And they buy acquisition for the the other times. “It’s interesting what kind of international product they are looking for,” he noted. “The last couple of years, especially out of the U.S. you have a lot more of the cool stuff: the Bosch and House of Cards. [But] that stuff doesn’t repeat – Game of Thrones‘ doesn’t repeat on free tv. We now get constantly asked: do you have any of those good old boring shows? The stuff that repeats?

And speaking of repeats…

Don’t forget about unscripted: The overarching conversations about the future of TV at these types of events most often rest on drama. But broadcasters reminded over and over again that unscripted is one of the most important drivers of audience and ad revenue in the multi-channel universe. As Barb Williams from Shaw said in the media leaders wrap panel: “We shouldn’t get too stuck on whether we have to own the next big scripted drama to be successful in this world. Where’s the game you can win? We’ve been winning big time in the lifestyle space….. We’ve seen our ratings go up on HGTV and Food this year. They are very different things. When we talk about TV Everywhere: that’s what we’re trying to figure out. What can you play in successfully.”

And on games you can win….

Over-parenting pirates may not be the best idea: Bell Media head Mary Ann Turcke stuck to her guns on the piracy conversation, reiterating her challenge to the industry to educate consumers about the impact of piracy, a viewpoint backed up by fellow exec Collette Wilson at Rogers. (Because 25 years of FBI warnings on home video have done so much.) Former NFB chair Tom Perlmutter, however, warned against taking a patronizing attitude with consumers over piracy, a viewpoint echoed by people like Doug Murphy at Corus, who said he thinks the onus is on the industry’s side to find a solution to effects of VPN and proxy pirating.

And on that note….

Start looking past Netflix (because platforms change): Just look at Facebook and YouTube. An MCN-focused panel including the heads of female-focused MCNs PopSugar and Refinery 29 emphasized the significant shift brought about by Facebook’s native video platform when it was introduced last year. (So instead of simply acting as a platform for YouTube videos, Facebook now can host the videos, get the views, etc.) While YouTube is about mass reach, Facebook is about community targeting – offering the opportunity for a significant change in strategy for companies that deliver video content.

Which means…

Just because you don’t live in Silicon Valley (or produce a show about it) doesn’t mean you can ignore technology: While traditional media execs danced around the topic of innovation and technology, the MCN panels were a different ballgame. “Technology is an extraordinary part of what we do,” said Chris Williams, chief audience officer, Maker Studios, noting that Makers’ 400-strong workforce is almost a quarter engineers. And Reza Izad, CEO of Collective Digital Studios emphasized that technical proficiency is at the heart of the company’s strategy. With the sheer amount of content flowing through an MCN and the opportunity for re-engagement, he said proprietary technology that facilitates both (content management systems, dashboards) puts his company ahead of the pack. Patrick Walker, CEO of Rightster, a cloud-based software and services platform, put it most succinctly: “We are at the centrepoint between art and science.” Not being in control of one’s own technology in this space puts you at risk, he noted: “A lot of companies are talent-heavy and leave the tech to YouTube but then you are susceptible to YouTube.”

Exactly. Because….

TV needs to measure better. It’s been said a million times before and it was said over and over again at Banff. TV needs to understand its viewership better, so it can compete against data-heavy digital rivals on a more even playing field and monetize against its high-value content. We must do better as an industry. Success depends on it.

Because viewers still do watch TV and…

Regular things still matter. When asked if winning Emmys matters to a company like Amazon, the company’s head of programming Joe Lewis pretty much snorted with laughter. “It’s very, very important,” he said, adding simply: “Frankly, you just see more people watching the show afterward.”

But still…

Production is starting to move at the speed of the internet. Traditional TV and film operate on very long lead times. But the new breed of entertainment turns around on a dime. Exhibit A: The CineCoup “Big Deal” pitch competition, hosted first in 2013 and then again this year at Banff, saw its inaugural effort yield a soup-to-nuts feature film in one year with a $30K opening weekend. And in a panel later in the conference, AwesomenessTV’s chief digital officer Kelly Day told the story of Expelled, a micro-budget feature film released by the company last year. When a popular YouTuber in ATV’s MCN expressed an interest in writing a feature, the company decided to back it, and cast it with another wildly popular ATV personality, Cameron Dallas. Greenlight to production took two weeks, and shooting another month. Two months after that, the film went on a short, successful theatrical run and then straight to iTunes, where it debuted at number one. Feeling the heat yet?

If you are…

It’s time to take risks: While on the surface, CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais’s opening speech for the conference seemed to repeat what have become familiar refrains in the Let’s Talk TV discussion. Have an international vision and strategy for your business. Be innovative. Up your producing game. But when you boil down the change rhetoric, what he is constantly espousing is embracing more risk: in financing (by going outside traditional channels), new markets and new ideas. Essentially, the entire media business is one of risk right now, so now is the time to try new things.

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