4 TVBEurope


Opinion NAB Analysis


www.tvbeurope.com May 2012


“More mobiles are sold every year than PC’s, TV’s and cars”


In a new age golden By Fergal Ringrose


IN THE outside world, the cold winds of recession and the Eurozone crisis (exacerbated by recent French and Greek anti- austerity elections) continue to blow. Within the media sphere, the threats of connected TV, disconnected TV and changing consumer behaviour continue to undermine the traditional linear television business model. All this is true. So why then,


was NAB 2012 so busy, vibrant, buzzing and vital? Why the growth in visitor numbers (to 91,932) and exhibition space (1,600 exhibitors spanning 815,000 net sqft)? Why, anecdotally, did exhibitors right across the board tell us they had their best NAB show ever? Is it because the NAB heartland involving the development, management and delivery of broadcast television and filmed entertainment across all mediums is in fact a solid, thriving business in the new social network order?


“the stats are overwhelming in terms of people having a second screen open while watching TV. The proliferation of second screens is driving this. Plus the fact that anyone under the age of say 20 just goes bananas for this stuff! “They are flipping media and consuming and creating media — leaning back and forward at the same time. This viewing experience is completely foreign to what we’re used to in traditional broadcasting. “Five years ago, the debate was


“I haven’t seen Facebook and


Twitter having an impact yet on what gets selected” by the networks, he said. “Where Facebook and Twitter can help is when you have shows that are on bubble. Several shows have gotten renewed [in recent years] because networks were aware of how much chatter was out there.” However, broadcaster complacency towards Facebook


workflows, there is a danger that content owners and broadcasters will let the most tremendous opportunity of our generation slip through their fingers. “More worrying still is that


many broadcasters will fail to address this sea-change in consumer activity in time and they could lose their core revenue streams and go out of business.” TVBEurope’s Dick Hobbs


spoke to Miranda CTO Michel


“Five years ago, the debate was about TV being lean-back while the internet was lean-forward — well, Steve Jobs managed to change that as well!”


Writing in NAB Show Daily


News, Broadcasting & Cable’s George Winslow reported Bruce Rosenblum, president of Warner Bros. Television Group telling an NAB conference session that the industry is in a new golden age. “The business has never been better,” Rosenblum said in an on-stage conversation with Broadcasting & Cable Executive Editor Melissa Grego. “Revenue from international has improved dramatically. The domestic broadcast, cable and syndication businesses are at a high point, and there are new buyers” in the market like Netflix and Hulu that are boosting the value of libraries and new productions. “Even in a global financial crisis, we have had five years of meaningful increases,” to the point where the revenue from international “more than covers the production costs of our entire sales of 26 shows”. Rosenblum also underlined


the key role social media can play in marketing television content.


and Twitter would be utter folly, argued AmberFin CTO Bruce Devlin at NAB. “If you plot the rate at which new media viewing platforms are being created and look at the cost of illuminating those platforms with broadcasters’ rich content, then only the companies that radically alter their multi- platform delivery workflows can afford to stay in business. The days of incremental change are behind us. It’s time to learn from the manufacturing industry and industrialise media manufacture. “More mobiles are sold every


year than PC’s, TV’s and cars — so there is a lot of change to understand and absorb as networks get faster and devices smarter,” Devlin said. “The traditional NAB audience is still devoted to linear television,” he said. “Until we acknowledge this revolutionary change in consumer preferences and adopt a very different approach to multi-platform delivery


about TV being lean-back while the internet was lean-forward — well, Steve Jobs managed to change that as well! It’s going to be unstoppable; people have a fundamental need to share. “What are they going to share?


Michael Wellesley-Wesley, Chyron


Proulx who said “multi- platform is the curve ball the industry has thrown us, and it’s a ‘remain in business’ platform — there is no revenue. So the old business model is at breaking point. You need a simpler model with fewer moving parts.”


Dynamic allocation Harmonic VP Product Management Tom Lattie said “the new reality is more channels with more service differentiation; faster time to market and profitability requirement; and the ‘less’ imperative — do more with less people, less money and less margin for error. This is what broadcasters face around the globe. They must reduce complexity of workflow while increasing flexibility and the ability to dynamically allocate resources. And provide more services to more screens.” While launching its Engage social and second screen service, Chyron President and CEO Michael Wellesley-Wesley said,


And how are the TV stations going to use this ability? How is it going to affect ratings?” Wellesley-Wesley admitted “we don’t know the answers yet,” but he sees the work of companies like Chyron in this area as “giving an adrenaline shot to an already very powerful medium.” At the launch of Ross Video’s Inception social media management suite, David Ross said “in some ways this [the ability to connect, transfer and publish to social networks] is like the Holy Grail for broadcasters. This ends the ‘wild west’ of social media management today,” he said — and it would also help end “the wardrobe malfunction” aspect of Twitter, at least on the part of live broadcasters. Harris Broadcast CTO Brian


Cabaceiros put it succinctly: “For the last 10 years, vendors at NAB have talked about TV anywhere to any device. This year, it’s really happening.” Multiplatform/device


broadcasting was certainly the dominant theme of NAB2012, but it was certainly not the only one: from page 42 in this issue we take you through some of the key headline trends and new products launched in Las Vegas. This will be followed by our


very own ‘lean back’ analysis in June issue, in which TVBEurope’s NAB writing team of Melanie Dayasena-Lowe, Carolyn Giardina, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, David Kirk and Adrian Pennington reflect on what the world’s biggest electronic media development, management and media trade show meant in European terms for a European audience.


EDITORIAL Editorial Director Fergal Ringrose


tvbeurope@mediateam.ie Media House, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland +3531 294 7783 Fax: +3531 294 7799


Deputy Editor Melanie Dayasena-Lowe melanie.dayasena-lowe@intentmedia.co.uk


Staff Writer Jake Young


jake.young@intentmedia.co.uk


Intent Media London, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England +44 207 226 7246


Editorial Consultant Adrian Pennington Associate Editor David Fox USA Correspondent Carolyn Giardina Contributors Mike Clark, Richard Dean, Chris Forrester, Jonathan Higgins, Mark Hill, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett, Heather McLean, Bob Pank, Nick Radlo, Neal Romanek, Philip Stevens, Reinhard E Wagner


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