Reporter's Notebook: With the emergence of such technologies as broadband, podcasting and video on demand, an array of opportunities and pitfalls face broadcasters today.The last full day of the 2005 National Association of Broadcasters convention found experts dealing with the enormous changes that new technologies are forcing onto broadcasters and audiences alike.
The sudden emergence of broadband, podcasting, video on demand, high definition, personal video players and other entertainment technologies has abruptly raised the expectations of audiences, who now expect networks and local entertainment providers to adapt with unprecedented speed.
A panel Wednesday led by Peggy Miles of Intervox Communications summarized the exciting but bewildering array of opportunities and pitfalls facing broadcasters and audiences today. She pointed out that more than half of all U.S newspapers now offer streaming video of top news stories on their Web sites, making the print media a direct competitor to broadcast outlets.
Broadcasters tout IPTV at NAB. Click here to read more.
Other developments, such as Clear Channel's foray into podcasting and the video services being offered by cellular telephone providers, show how complex the business environment already is. "The demand is there," said Anthony Bestwick, vice president of Business Operations and Technology for Sony Pictures Entertainment. "It's execution" that will determine success or failure for most media companies in the age of new media.
The panel agreed that the changes that will happen in the next few years will dwarf the changes we've seen in the last several decades.
Piracy is a critical challenge, according to the panel. "Within 4 to 6 hours of its first playing," said Bestwick, "a typical movie turns up on the Internet," and pirated DVD knockoffs start appearing a few days after that.
"Piracy is the killer app for PCs," said Charlie Boswell, director of the AMD digital media and entertainment group, emphasizing the difficulty media companies face in preserving the value of their content.
Steven Stough, technical director and chief engineer of Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems and Solutions, added that many of the leading experts in information security doubt that it will ever be possible to ensure that piracy isn't taking place on any given network or distribution system.
The greatest untapped opportunities in the digital media environment may lie in devising business models that make the creation and distribution of digital media predictably profitable, according to the panel. Jermiah Golston, distinguished member of the Texas Instruments technical staff, feels that the concept of the networked home has tremendous potential once copyright owners develop a coherent accounting mechanism for tracking the numerous intellectual property rights involved in most digital media products.
Stough suggested that a highly profitable niche will belong to anyone who can devise a comprehensive back-end system for the accounting and billing of video-on-demand services.
The fact that consumers are getting overwhelmed with the explosion of new choices adds even more uncertainty to the digital media landscape. That wrinkle should get ironed out shortly. "The problem of finding what you need will be solved in the near future," said Stough, probably within the next two or three years.
In a related announcement, VitalStream announced a new Flash-based video streaming service that includes measurement tools to calculate the number of people who are viewing any piece of hosted video at any given time. The service is offered through an ASP model and includes the ability to monitor demographics, billing and content management.
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