World Content Market Etma

Etma – confidential – presentation 23.2.2010 - Prague

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Managing Connected TV and Converging Media

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Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you for spending some of your precious time with me this afternoon.

Knowing how busy you are I’m going to keep this presentation short but I

will be happy to answer any questions you might have afterwards.

Managing connected TV and Converging Media; what a topic to address

with you today given the incredible shifts going on in the television and

media sector these days and the significant business and management

challenges in both the content production and the distribution sectors!


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Allow me to take you back into time and to become a bit personal. When I

started my career as a unit manager and production manager in feature

films, back in the seventies when I was still young and beautiful, the media

world was so wonderfully simple and straightforward.

We had the television screen and the cinema screen … and dealing with

those rights was a cup of tea. A child could do the washing. Broadcasting

was mainly a national matter and nobody cared about the little overspill into

other nation’s territories.

The programmes would be purchased during some huge TV markets that

we all liked to attend, because we not only did business there but we also

met friends with whom we liked to do business. Back home the products

that had been acquired would be broadcasted and shown to a grateful

audience that consumed whatever we decided to put on the menu.

SLIDE 2 – PUSH MEDIA

Push media was the word.


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SLIDE 3 – BACK TO TITLE AND VISUAL

In several European territories things started to change in the early eighties

when commercial broadcasting started to develop and became a

competitor to the public- and state broadcasters. I’m sure many of you will

remember how by then the atmosphere already started to change and the

art of producing, co-producing, selling and buying became a lot tougher

and more complicated.

More and more, those who where working within the media had to deal and

be familiar with aspects of business administration and management.


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Video recording became accessible to all and the rights situation became

more complicated. Television and audiovisual products became a

commodity and international media groups started to emerge. They

covered several territories at the time and once again life became a lot

more complicated.

In the middle of the eighties, a huge array of possibilities emerged for those

who had a good nose for business and liked to work in the media. This was

the time when moving up on the career ladder changed from being a rather

simple and straightforward process to a kind of a rat-race where

competences needed to be shown and put into practice.

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And from that moment onwards the situation hasn’t stopped changing and

developing: video became extremely popular and piracy became an issue;

negotiations that before were simple became increasingly complex; the iron

curtain was lifted and suddenly a new market presented itself in which state

television had to compete with all kinds of commercial channels; cable

operators found their ways into the homes and gave access to a wide

variety of channels from abroad while satellite channels filled the sky and

found audiences for their theme channels; DVD became big and more or

less killed the once-so-popular video distribution chains; PC’s conquered

the market and suddenly copying and distributing programmes became the

easiest thing to do. Internet – in the beginning a plaything for nerds – grew

into a major communication tool; digital TV opened new borders and we

are not for away from the day when the saying that the audience will

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watch what they want, when they want it and where they

want it will become reality,


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thanks to the growing penetration of broadband, the increasing

transmission speed and the availability of multiple devices that will allow

the audience to consume media at their convenience .

Out goes the push media and in comes the pull media system.

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The era of pull media has arrived.


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In less than two generations the media world has evolved from the stone

age to the atomic era, and trust me… there’s a lot more to come. I dare to

bet that should we agree to meet again here in five years time - which I

hope we will in good health- we will look at today’s media situation as if it

was already a century ago. Huge changes are waiting for all of us, and

we’d better be prepared for them if in a few years time we still want to be

decisive players in the media world.

No longer we are the ones in charge, but the audience is!

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At his point I have to introduce etma, the “european television and media

management academy”, based in Strasbourg in France and of which I’ve

the honour of being the creator and director. Etma is an international

training institute dedicated to building the skills of middle managers and

senior executives in the media sectors, helping them to meet the current

and future challenges and you can imagine that we are really thinking hard

about what we should be teaching and which skills we should be

developing with our participants.

Slide 8

In today’s presentation, I’d like to address 3 aspects:


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1. I’d like to talk about some key management issues/challenges this

industry faces in next few years

2. Secondly I will explain how etma is responding to the shifting sands

with its program offerings to the industry

3. And finally I will show why you, your organization and its managers

will benefit from a continued investment and commitment to

leadership & management development and training.

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Key Management Issues/Challenges

To say our industry is facing a major shake-out in the next few years would

be an understatement. But what do we know about such challenging

times?


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• First, the content producers and broadcasters and distributors who

can offer compelling media experiences will ‘win’ higher audience

numbers and will manage to reach the highest number of “niche

audiences”. Integrating the different platforms and using social media

– including user generated content - will be a key element to success

but managing those and to integrate them in a way that works for the

audience demands new and specialised competences that go a lot

further that those usually linked to traditional media. How to marry the

TV screen with the internet generation, that’s the question of

converging media and it’s number one item on the agenda.

• This said, we also know that different demographic groups within

our communities actually consume media in very different ways,

at different times and by using different devices.

Until now we dealt with this in our programming schedules: we were

the ones who decided when the kids, when the young adults and

when the elderly people would get the programmes we thought they

would be interested in.


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If one of those groups would not represent enough market-share we

would forget about them and concentrate on the more interesting

ones.

The traditional distribution system was not fit to serve niche

audiences but the technological developments have changed that

situation completely and new marketing tools turned the situation

around: small becomes beautiful. Niche is nice.

Today small audiences can be just as important as the big ones and

we can reach them with limited costs. But these small audience

groups have become clever. If as a broadcaster or a content provider

you’re not there for them when and where they want to find you and

get the content they like, they give you the middle finger and say

goodbye and you’ve lost them forever. How to deal with these niche

audiences, how to find them, how to convince them to watch or to buy

your content and how to keep them satisfied… it’s a new situation

that once again asks for new skills and competencies.


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More and more we have to care about our 'relationship' to these

audiences, wherever they are, and we thoroughly need to 'build' our

'entertainment experience' upon these communities.

• There is no denying that excellence in writing and imagination needs

to be creatively combined with the use of engaging multi-platform

elements woven together in a manner that keeps the audience

coming back for more again and again. While this is easy to say, it is

harder to deliver. Until very recently we all agreed that content was

king.

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Today I say that CONTEXT is king.


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The viewer experience, the easy-to-use full access to all media

platforms and the availability of unlimited quality content is going to

be the maker or breaker of businesses.

BBC’s hugely successful I-player was just the beginning of a new way

of media consumption. Online platforms such as HULU, SEESAW,

blinkbox and many others are just the first players on the market. And

wait until you’ve seen BBC’s Canvas project in action. This will

change the world of media consumption in a way you’ve never

imagined before.

But… just read the articles in the trade press and you’ll immediately

understand how complicated all this is becoming. Finding the right

financing model to keep these wonderful developments afloat is just

one of the problems. The competition that before existed mainly

between the public broadcasters and the commercial channels has

now expanded into new areas.

Who needs broadcasters if cable operators can offer the content

themselves, exclusively and faster on their VOD platforms? Who

needs buyers and sellers if the majors can easily create their own


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dedicated channels and Pay per View services? What’s going to

happen with rights protection when the Slingbox application soon will

bring your home programming to you wherever you are in the world,

as if you would be sitting in your sofa at home? How are you going to

make sure that the viewer finds you in the electronic programming

guide when there’s 400 other channels to chose from? And don’t let

me start about the problems that content producers will soon face

when they are looking for the cash to finance that blue-chip content

they’ll need to produce if they want to stay part of the game.

I could go on for half an hour, just enumerating the new situations

that soon we’ll all be confronted with. Ladies and gentlemen, this is

becoming a very complicated environment where no prisoners will be

taken. Only the strong will survive.

Forgive my military language, but if on the battlefield of tomorrow’s

digital media you want to be more than a simple soldier who executes

the orders given by others with the risk of having your head shot off,

you’d better start preparing to become member of the general staff

and acquire the necessary skills to take the decisions yourself.


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• Taking into account the growing competition and the ever more

complicated legal and financial situation, both content generators and

content distributors need to improve their business fundamentals

in order to make money and capture profits within reasonable

timeframes.

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Every single person who wants to play a leading role in whatever

media company will need a to be able to coordinate within the work

environment all necessary media related tasks regarding resources

and strategic goals within a set of determining parameters. This

means you’ll have to be able to manage a business model which

considers all lines of business that affect the media product’s value


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chain and relate principal theories of business administration and

economics to it, strongly involving managerial skills as a key factor of

organisational performance. Increasingly leading media people on

management level will have to take into account the potential impact

of media on the political, social and cultural development of the

society. If they don’t they’ll soon find politicians and pressure groups

on their way who will make their life sour and difficult.

All this together challenges us to develop and exhibit a whole new set

of managerial and senior leadership competencies! As I said in the

beginning of this presentation… the days of wine and roses are over:

there’s a tough world waiting for us out there. These issues are NOT

unique to the private sector companies. Our Public broadcasters and

their production departments/partners must also exhibit the same

qualities.


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Slide 12

Well, I could keep going and address such issues as the need to

more effectively lead change, to re-position and re-invent a

compelling strategic direction for the existing organizations, and for

the very important need to pump-up COLLABORATION amongst

both traditional and non-traditional partners in our industry.


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SLIDE 13

Essentially we are going to have to ‘break’ with tradition, “break the

rules” we have come to play by in the past 30 years, and “break the

constraints” of our very conservative management approaches of the

past. We also need to “break out of the own territory” – to better take

our programming into other parts of the world – and yes, and this is

the good news, this is possible: one just needs the right tools to do it.

And once you possess those… the sky is the limit.


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1. And now time for a commercial break… How is etma responding to

these Industry Shifts?

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The first thing I would hope you remember about etma is that we are

REALLY focused on providing development with practical application to

organizations that will clearly contribute to improved results.

Taking into account the time pressure on people who’re working in the

international media industry and the workload that is put upon them, we’ve

developed several forms of training that will allow talented and motivated

people to participate and still carry on with their daily duties, while

maintaining a balanced family life.


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SLIDE 15

•

•

•

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Our one-year Post-Graduate Media Management Distance Learning

Programme shows a multi-module approach that combines 4 one-week

collective sessions in Strasbourg with at-home projects and web-based

instruction that ensures the content has very relevant application to the

participant’s job and organization.

It also ensures that the time away from the office is minimized while the

learning is maximized! The detailed information can be found in these two

documents which can also be downloaded from our website, and of course


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I invite you to take advantage of our being together here to talk to me: it will

be my pleasure to offer you all the details about the programme.

But just allow me to mention that our faculty are some of the best in Europe

due to our Partnerships with Bournemouth University & Professional

Associations such as the EBU, the Association of Commercial Televisions

in Europe, Cable Europe and CTAM, as well as some leading guest

resources from the industry and governments from Europe and the world.

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•


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For more senior leaders in this industry we have developed an exclusive

Partnership with the Canada-based International Institute for TV-Media

Leadership, a group well known around the world over the past 10 years

delivering high impact, career-enhancing experiences for executives.

Together we have build content & learning approaches that are hands-on,

engaging, practical and demanding.

Several joint media management related workshops will be organised in

2010 and after, but the first one, called EMELP or European Media

Executive Leadership Programme, is already taking place in June. I have

some flyers about this programme with me and will be happy to offer you

more details after this presentation or during the rest of the World Content

Market.


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2. And finally, how could you, your organization and its Mid-level

Managers and Senior Executives benefit from etma training

programmes?

Let me start by telling not in my words, but in the words of a few of our

particpants:

• from a participant in our Media Management Distance Learning

Program, working for a German public broadcaster:

Sometimes people ask me: "What's your benefit from the etma

course?" It's not about career steps or about money, I use to say. It's


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about diving into topics that I otherwise would not have discovered;

and any of these topics is enriching for my workplace.

• From Dan Korn, Sr. VP of Programming at Discovery UK

“The EMELP seminar is a terrific experience - it's a highly relevant

and intense training course, which combines a really enjoyable series

of exercises and lectures with an important opportunity both to reflect

on different approaches to your own management challenges and

also to discuss different leadership styles and techniques with senior

managers from a whole range of different backgrounds. I found it

hugely rewarding”

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We totally understand that during these difficult times with budget cuts

threatening us all and alas lots of jobs on the line , it is very tempting to cut-

back on training to save costs. However, this is short term policy and quite

frankly stupid behaviour. The challenges we are all facing in our industry

today are unprecedented, and demand some completely new thinking.

Companies and individuals alike will need to invest. Now is the time to act

with courage and foresight. Acting like an ostrich and thinking that by

putting one’s head in the sand the problems will disappear is utterly foolish.

Those who choose to act like this will soon feel a serious slap in their face

that will force them to pull their heads out of the comfortable black hole they

created for themselves, only to discover that they now are surrounded by

mean and lean competitors who are better equipped and far ahead in the

battle for the audience and success.

In my opinion, to be successful in tomorrow’s world of connected-TV and

converging media you need:

1. to really move beyond your current competencies and thinking styles.


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2. You need to engage actively in applying new thinking and leading

insights to breakthrough ideas and initiatives in your own working

environment and distinguish yourself, make yourself noticed.

3. You need to build your personal networks with other leading media

practitioners across Europe and use their input and shared good

practices to improve your performance…

Ladies & Gentlemen, the challenges put to us by our industry today are

enormous, the level of responsibility and expectations for our middle

managers and senior executives are higher than ever before.

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I encourage you to invest in revitalizing your key resources for future

success and to invest in yourself. A partnership with the European

television & media management academy is the first and most important

step towards that goal.

Thank you very much for your attention and wishing you a successful

market I open the floor for any questions you might have.

Education

World Content Market Etma