Media is Like a House Full of Termites

What is the future of television? That simple question seems to roil the media market today.  Pundits weigh in and, depending upon who you talk to and where they reside in the industry, you will get a range of answers.

So I was curious when I attended the CCW this past week. The CCW is a compendium of hardware, software, intellectual property owners and distributors. It is a 360 degree view of our industry and, as such, offers many expert perspectives under one roof.

My opinion is, like house full of termites, there are a lot of challenges out there that seem to gnaw at the foundations of our business.  For MSOs, the current challenge to their business is two-fold. It is the technology that is increasingly taking viewers away from the STB to over the top. And it is also the changing demographics; cord sensitive consumers who may not see linear TV as a must- have. For networks and digital video platforms, it is the combination of DVRs, VOD and ad blockers that is squeezing potential income. For the data owners and providers it is the continued "siloization" of data streams at the end user that makes data aggregation expensive and each individual dataset less valuable. It is also the challenge of content coding where efforts to standardize externally through EIDR and Ad-ID add to internal needs that will require internal re-transcoding every few years.  Whew!

Here are some takeaways from the conference:

TV Rocks!

But is the television business really in trouble? Not according to Michael Wolff whose book, TV is the New TV has been causing waves in the industry ocean. Wolff is a cheerleader for TV … at least as he defines it. "TV was once a distribution channel.  Now it is a vastly expanded business model. The TV business is now many businesses and it is monetized in different ways," explained Wolff.

He has a point.  There has been a lot of posturing by digital media businesses. According to Wolff, “The digital media business has been saying ‘we are the future and you are the past.’ That is a powerful and debilitating thing to say. Almost everyone has come to believe that. I walk in the corridors of the media industry and they say digital is the future. I hear that from a lot of print people and they don't know what is going on. So if they say digital is the future, they are probably wrong. Digital came and said ‘We will eat TV’s lunch. We will give out free content, deliver critical mass and more eyeballs and we will sell advertising. That is the TV model and we will take it.’ But in the same period, TV was looking at certain trends such as DVR usage and said ‘Something is happening in TV marketing. We are still a good ad medium but we might look at it in different ways.’”

Digital Is Old School

Wolff said that digital is actually following the TV model from the 1960s and 1970s, “catering in every way to advertisers who pay the bill. It is a ratings and traffic business in a world where the cost of advertising goes ever lower.” Meanwhile, “TV is expanding viewing opportunities and is less dependent on advertising. Digital is more and more confronted with the existential predicament that it is wholly dependent on ads. Think ad blockers….”

He continued, “Facebook and Google are volume sellers of low cost advertising and that is one business that you don't want to be in. But they say they are the future and we are the past. TV, with its myriad of revenue streams, has become incredibly good. It is the new golden age with an extraordinarily sophisticated product. So much so that I would say that here are four words that capture every conversation and that is ‘What are you watching?’ TV has cultural currency which is an extraordinarily valuable currency.”

Measurement is a Monster Problem

So, for Wolff, the marketing model for TV has its strengths as long as TV is flexible and agile and maximizes all possible revenue aspects of its content. But measurement has not caught up to the platforming of this content.  This is where Wolff became circumspect. “Measure-ability has become a monster problem. There is no standard. We live in Nielsen world, which is not right or wrong, because everyone was measured by same standard. But now everyone has measures and there are no standards. It is impossible to know who to believe so we believe nobody.  Now it is not only incredibly complex but also deeply problematic.”

Content Identification is Mandatory, Requires Funding and is Continuous

It is no mean feat to roll out a standardize-able coding system for both programs and ads. Joe Simon, Chief Technology Officer at Univision noted, “All of us have issues with costs and look to automating the work flow. We won't be able to do that without content id.” According to Glenn Goldstein, SVP, Chief Technology Convergence Officer, Viacom, content recognition, “is a mess internally and out in the ecosystem. The efficiency needs to be improved. There are duplicative copies of content with the same ad pitched over and over to MVPDs to put in their pumps. Monetization comes from consistent reports that measure audience engagement. And it needs de-duping.” Stacey Decker, Chief Technology Officer at WGBH, added, “Unfortunately there are silos. I am not sure how we get to a standard but IDER is progress.”

It will only go so far until the money people see its value as Kurt Rao, VP Corporate IT and CTO for Time Warner, concluded, “It is not technology decision. It is a financial decision.” And apparently once coded is not enough. Goldstein added, “Be prepared to re transcode your inventory every few years. It is never going to be transcoded and done.”

Conclusion

There is probably no one in the industry that has all the answers. The future continues to be unscripted but by fortifying our business structure with needed reinforcements – standardized measurement solutions, industry standard program and ad identification codes – we can prepare for any dialogue

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Q&A Interview with Liz Janneman - OvationTV

Liz Janneman not only speaks fluent Dutch, she is also a very effective senior sales executive for OvationTV. Her background spans local to national and agency to network. She started in the business at a rep firm before moving into the agency side of the business in local and then in national cable buying. She talks about buying networks according to their “brand essence” before there was Nielsen measurement for cable. She eventually moved into cable television to Turner and is currently at Ovation TV where she is the senior sales executive for the company.

Ovation TV, which is a personal favorite of mine, is the only arts-oriented cable network available to subscribers. And yet, Time Warner Cable has decided to drop Ovation from its line-up effectively shutting out the arts network in major cities like New York and Los Angeles. According to the TWC customer service people I have spoken to about the network, they dropped Ovation without adding any suitable replacement in that tier, effectively lowering the value of their service to their subscribers.

In this interview, Liz talks about the impact of the Time Warner decision, the importance of arts for communities, the challenges of independent cable networks to survive when competing for channel space with multi-network corporations and the future for media based on the current business models.

The five videos of the interview are as follows:

Subject                                    Length (in minutes)

Background and Measurement      (11:30)

Ovation and Independent nets    (10:58)

Time Warner Cable                    (8:47)

Value of Arts, Social Media       (5:56)

Predictions                               (2:40)

Charlene Weisler interviews Ovation TV's EVP Sales Liz Janneman about her background and measurement of media in this 11:30 minute video:

Liz Janneman of Ovation TV talks to Charlene Weisler about Ovation and the challenge for smaller independently owned networks to gain (and hold) MVPD coverage. This fascinating video is 10:58 minutes:

Charlene Weisler talks to Liz Janneman specifically about TIme Warner Cable's decision to drop the only arts-oriented cable network from its footprint. Learn more in this 8:47 minute video:

What is the value of the arts in society and why is it so important to have accessible arts programming as part of an MSOs franchise agreement with a municipality? Charlene Weisler asks Liz Janneman of Ovation to talk about the arts and its value in this 5:56 minute video:

Liz Janneman shares her predictions for Ovation and media in general with Charlene Weisler in this 2:40 minute video:

The Future of On Screen Media - Who Is Right?

When it comes to a discussion of the future of on screen video, there are generally areas of agreement among the various constituencies. One is that the landscape is in constant flux, creating changes to the business model and market uncertainties. Another is that technology forms the playing field. But overall agreement of its future impact on the industry and the consumer mindset may end there.  December’s OnScreen Media Summit  in New York helped highlight the various issues, bringing together many industry experts in the space.

What is the future of on screen video? Discussions of the subject can become contentious. Opinions ranged from Discovery’s David Zaslov’s optimistic declaration that “this is the best time to be in the content business” to Boxee’s Avner Rosen who believes that “the current system is bound to fail. We have a new reality that we ignore at our own risk”. Some, like Doug Sylvester of Avail-TVN, see areas of potential risk, warning that “OTT is a destructive force” and that “the infrastructure needs to be updated”.  Some compared the current video model to that of the music industry whose cautionary tale of industry fall-out remains a gloomy warning to other media facing the same challenges. Others such as Rebecca Glashow of Discovery said the “people don’t want to work that hard for entertainment. We are not the music industry.” All very divergent opinions. Who is right?

One thing is clear: there is a rich and important future for data analytics so that any component of the video landscape can be measured and insights made actionable for sales and strategic decision-making. If we cannot understand how to measure and analyze, we will not be able to monetize. If we cannot monetize, there is no business model. The crucible is data analytics as Joan Gillman of Time Warner Cable noted “It is not the data; it is what you do with the data.”

In fact, there are successful new business models being built today around big data such as addressable advertising and the expanding sophistication of local advertising. Greg McCastle of AT&T spoke about more data and metrics being developed around ROI, made possible via the use of set top box data. In fact, local advertising is one of the richly improved areas for advertisers with more available data (as noted by Rentrak’s Bill Livek) and therefore better, more stable metrics. Some combination of census level data via the set top box and a demographic sample will move this industry sector forward with a robust representative sample.   Add to the mix VOD dynamic ad insertion as described by Kathy Timko of Canoe, and the optimists in the industry may have cause to smile.

New and improved revenue streams made possible by new streams of data and emerging technological advances can not only help stave off media obsolescence, it can also offer a richly rewarded future.  Who is right among all the differing opinions about on screen media? I will cast my lot with the optimists … as long as they are data enthusiasts.

Q&A Interview with Rachel Dreyfus - Time Warner Cable

Rachel Dreyfus is the VP Marketing Intelligence at Time Warner Cable. Rachel is the new co-Chair of CTAM’s Research Planning Committee and is currently involved in all aspects of Time Warner Cable customer satisfaction research. Rachel talks about her background - how she got to where she is today - some current projects, past changes and future predictions.

The four videos in this interview are as follows:

Video Subject                                           Length in Minutes
Background and Favorite Part of the Job       4:12
Current Projects                                              3:46
Past and Future                                               4:36
CTAM                                                             3:52

CW: Rachel, what are you working on right now?

RD: Working on a lot of things right now simultaneously. But the most important thing for the year 2010 is going to be improving our customer experience. Our industry has talked about that for at least 20 years or more but now with the competitive environment the way it is and our video market share challenged with the phone and the internet category slowing in terms of growth and potential we really need to focus on the customer experience. So a lot of our research is focused on guiding our decisions in terms of what is important to the customer. What do we really need to do to provide a branded Time Warner Cable customer experience that will make customers engaged with our company, for more of a two way relationship with our customers – not just send them a bill every month – but show them some love, show them some appreciation for their business and in turn hopefully be known as the provider who deserves their business….

CW: Can you tell me anything that you discovered from the Three Screen Study? Anything that surprised you? Anything that you found particularly noteworthy?

RD: Yes. The study was very interesting because they were tracking, fusing if you will, two different panels – panels of online viewers and panels of the same consumers who were watching tv traditionally. So Nielsen had these two panels and they found that the top quintile of traditional tv viewers were also in the top quintile of online video viewers. So what the finding was that the people who watch the most tv are also the same people who watch the most online video. The conclusion therein was that there won’t be any cannibalization, at least there isn’t now, of traditional tv viewing from online viewing. And from the MSO perspective we have a different point of view on that because as it becomes easier and easier to find the online video, as it becomes better quality like HD quality on online video and as the user experience becomes more convenient, that’s when we will see more and more people jettison one for the other. That is not far away in the future. So right now we are just taking in all the different research that we can on all these topics and try to synthesize it for ourselves and come up with a point of view and a strategy that will help us prepare and anticipate consumers future behaviors

Rachel Dreyfus, VP Marketing Intelligence at Time Warner Cable, talks about her career path and how she discovered Research as a career and her favorite projects in her current job.




Rachel Dreyfus, VP Marketing Intelligence at Time Warner Cable, talks about what she is working on now. How is the media landscape changing and what do we need to do to better serve the customer?

CW: What would you say are the most dramatic changes in the industry in the past five years?

RD: In the past five years social networking and blogging have overtaken almost any other internet activity we have and they now encompass something like one in every eleven minutes of internet activity time spent. I think that is really important because consumers are finding information from their own networks of friends more than they might be finding it from mass advertising or from any other media. And what that does is it propels internet ahead of tv as the most crucial service that you can’t live without. People are using these tools and getting their recommendations and word of mouth is spreading. We need to find a way to capitalize on social networking in our company and in our industry so we take advantage of the power that that has to offer us. I don’t think anyone has cracked that nut yet from a business perspective. It isn’t about forcing information at people or trying to be their friends but what I think will happen is that we will figure out the way to use social networking for consumer research purposes, for creating new ideas, passing new programming through the green light process and that sort of thing. And when we do it will be a very powerful tool for our industry.

Rachel Dreyfus, VP Marketing Intelligence at Time Warner Cable, talks about dramatic changes in the media landscape such as social networking and blogging and also offers some future predictions.

CW: Rachel, you are a member of the CTAM Research Committee and congratulations, you have just been named the co-chair of the Research Conference Committee.  Can you tell us about the work you’ve done on the committee and your plans for the Research Conference?

RD: Sure. I’ve been on the CTAM Research committee for about 4 years, since I joined Time Warner Cable. And I’ve been very involved in the Nielsen Three Screen Study where we are looking at traditional use of video and how online video use may or may not be cannibalizing traditional video use. From the MSO perspective we are very interested in tracking that and religiously trying to figure out what the business model for the future will be as more and more content goes online. So I’m very involved in that study. Yes, I was just named co-chair of the CTAM Research Conference for next year. That conference will be in May of next year so I hope to motivate everybody to attend it. I’m co-chairing with Karen Ramspacher from fuse. We look forward to shaking up that conference and making it compelling and actionable for everyone who attends.

Rachel Dreyfus, VP Marketing Intelligence at Time Warner Cable, discusses CTAM, the Three Screen Study and, as co-chair, her future plans for the CTAM Research Planning Committee.