Steven JP Comeau, president of Halifax-based Collideascope Digital Productions, is a Gemini Award-winning entrepreneur, producer, director, musician and all-round new media guy. Comeau serves on the board of the CFTPA, where he is the head of the Atlantic Council and cochair of the New Media Committee. He also served on many other industry boards and committees such as the Telefilm New Media Advisory Committee.

Looking at the Banff Television Festival’s online delegate list this year, I can’t help but notice the distinct absence of new media companies as compared to years gone by. Peaking about two Banffs ago, the number of new media companies participating in the festival has diminished to almost nothing (although the festival still offers a strong program for TV and new media producers who remain committed to the medium).

A distinct few, however, have survived and are growing stronger than ever, which makes me think of cockroaches in a nuclear disaster.

If we look at what has happened in new media over the last year as a total atomic meltdown, then I am happy to be one of those cockroaches that has survived. And like those cockroaches, I’ve done so by staying small and focusing on the basic mechanisms of survival (like low overheads and good cash flow) and by identifying and responding swiftly to the changes in the new media environment.

The truth is, the dot-com meltdown is a good thing for the interactive media industry. It brought reality back into the business and weeded out the eager capitalists who didn’t actually bring value to the new media industry – the companies that were formed overnight with the sole mission to attract as much venture capital or angel investment as possible, and line the pockets of the founders while offering no solid product or service. Potential partners with this mentality often rejected my company’s business plan because they didn’t see a projection for exponential growth and an IPO within three years.

But the bubble finally burst, extinguishing these imposters and setting the stage for an interactive renaissance – one that will happen slowly over the next few years in a much more reasonable and sustainable manner. One that will produce value for both audiences and producers.

Here are some contributing factors:

* The current skepticism prevalent in the entertainment industry created a reaction to all the failed promises of new media and will force everyone in the value chain, from producers to ISPs and cable companies, to be very strategic and focus on real costs and revenues instead of wasting huge investments by producing only hype. It will force all interested parties to develop a better understanding of new media and demand more clarity in communication. This downward pressure will in the end create a stronger industry.

* People’s rationalisation of new media is changing. At one point people thought new media was actually a brand new medium. Another perspective is to see each individual medium as having an interactive potential and ability – core businesses and products remain but evolve to exploit opportunities as the technology becomes more available and useful.

This means instead of having such a sharp division where television companies and new media ventures work on the same project with two separate budgets, we’ll move to a single unified budget, delivering shows with interactive components imbedded in them, with the TV company driving the whole process.

* New funds like the Canada New Media Fund and the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, and production incentives such as the Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit, point to an increasing growth in funding devices for the new media industry.

In due time, this will enable all kinds of producers to create interactive content in the same manner that they create film and television. As such, bottom-line-driven corporate agendas should have increasingly less influence on new media content creation.

Whether you agree with these points or not, the Web, digital cable/satellite and the interactive potential they bring are not going away.

Even though new media companies have retreated wholesale from the international television markets and events such as Banff, MIP and NATPE, there are still a lot of people committed to exploring the medium and finding opportunities that not only bring more entertainment value to the audience but more business opportunity to producers and broadcasters.

Yes, the interactive future is still a bit off, but hopefully now the industry’s vision of it will be better rooted in reality.

-www.collideascope.com