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It has become very clear that Internet and, more importantly, the convergence of IT and broadcast technologies have radically altered the way in which consumers discover, purchase, and experience media. The introduction of the Apple iPad and transformation of Hulu into a subscription service for professional content are just the latest chapters in an ever accelerating narrative of digital transformation.
Hulu’s recent official announcement of its Hulu Plus service raises the stakes by offering consumers a library of over 2,000 previously broadcast network shows as well as access to all new network programming from NBC, ABC, and FOX. The programs will be viewable across a striking array of platforms including PCs, TVs, gaming consoles, Blu-ray players, tablets, and mobile devices. Even Apple’s Flash-resistant mobile devices will be fully supported.
But as consumers flock to new over-the-top media services, content owners are often stumbling in their efforts to provide content to these new services. Challenges include barriers imposed by out-of-date, entrenched business models as well as the time and costs associated with content preparation itself.
So, in this new era of digital ubiquity and high speed networks, why is the business of preparing and packaging content for distribution still stuck in the dark ages?
As consumers rush to embrace new platforms, devices and experiences, media producers are increasing trapped in the past, unable or unwilling to capitalize on the potential cost savings and new revenue opportunities that digital technology allows.
This story is not new. Human behavior is driven by habit and even individual consumers can be slow to embrace change. But when habit becomes frozen on an industrial scale in the form of industry-wide business models and billions of dollars in revenue is at stake, change can seem impossibly complicated. Sometimes it can take a near catastrophe to get thing moving in the right direction. Just ask anyone who worked in the music industry 10 years ago.
Some of the problems are, of course, business-related. The cable networks, which rely on their share of subscriber fees from the major cable providers such as Comcast, are understandably reluctant to hand their content over to an over-the-top service. And studios are reluctant to mess with the old theatrical release windows which retails and other distributors have relied upon for decades.
But entrenched business models are only part of the problem. Another big piece of the puzzle has to do with the current methods for packaging and preparing content for distribution. So, what’s wrong with current media preparation processes?
Well, for one thing, they were created to serve the needs of a much simpler and smaller marketplace. The traditional media supply chain began with the need to deliver content for theatrical exhibition, which had established release windows and a dedicated distribution network. As broadcast television, then home video and cable emerged, this model was replicated, resulting in a series of parallel and more-or-less independent, business units, processes, and supply chains.
When media companies began repurposing content for the web and mobile platforms beginning in the late nineties, their initial impulse was to treat these digital file-based networks as just another channel, creating a unique path through the value network for each new entertainment product that was created. They simply created an “Online” division to supplement their “Home Entertainment” or “Broadcast” divisions.
But, digital media is not just a new form factor or method of packaging content. Digital content is liquid and fungible; it can be transformed, repackaged, and personalized. And global high speed networks are not just a new channel for media distribution. The network is a multi-lane highway not a one way street. It is about push and pull – delivery and response. And it is capable of carrying an enormous amount of data along with the content itself.
All of this represents a completely new way of discovering, purchasing, experiencing content which demands entirely new business models, new supply chains, new skills, and new attitudes. Digital media production and distribution are dynamic and cyclical, not linear. Any attempt to apply the old models to this new reality is bound to fail.
As the number of delivery options grow, the complexity and cost of fulfillment within the current media supply chain is exploding exponentially. Increased complexity results in lost time, duplication of effort, wasted investments, lost productivity, and missed opportunities as workers juggle spreadsheets and struggle to keep up with the latest formats and codecs.
Faced with this dilemma, however, technology vendors responsible for helping media companies prepare content for multi-platform distribution focus too narrowly on the technical challenges of transcoding and file transport and ignore the business side.
What is required is more than just new transcoding tools, we need a complete reinvention of the traditional B2B media distribution ecosystem. Media companies need industry-specific, value-added business applications (specific tools for broadcast, advertising, publishing, direct response, stock media, etc.), automated supply chain workflows, separation of creative and manufacturing tasks, public/private cloud hybrids, media and metadata exchange standards, and more.
Panvidea is leading the way in providing flexible, business-centric tools for media providers and their distribution partners. Tools that help them handle the business challenges of distribution as well as the technical challenges. Tools that help them generate new revenue and transform their business.
