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the industry’s passed you; the next thing’s happening.” He pointed to the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative as an example of a project existing in an entirely unrealistic time scale. “I think fl exible API-driven


workfl ow systems are going to be crucial for us as an industry to survive. It’s not about a single vendor or partner, it’s about how we work together. I had a visit from a big software company who promised our CFO, ‘We can solve all of your problems. You don’t need any of that broadcasty stuff. We’ll solve it all for you.’ We all know it’s much, much more diffi cult than that, but if they say they can come in and halve the price, that gets people’s attention.”


“It’s a good stick for the IT industry to beat the broadcast industry with, isn’t it?,” noted ITV’s Stevenson, “That it’s kind of disparate and doesn’t have any standards. ‘You’re just a mess of standards and there’s no coherence; everyone’s doing everything differently’”. Stevenson said that in the


fi nal analysis, “We still need a platform where we do all our stuff”, that a certain amount of stability was required in a platform.


Steve Fish agreed, but said that it was essential to be able to incrementally improve platforms, without having to change the whole platform. A new automation system for playout is not something that can be changed quickly.


Roundtable participant BT Media and Broadcast provided a stunning venue for the discussion


Scheduling systems are one example of an essential enterprise-wide system that seems ubiquitously diffi cult to manage and upgrade. Fish said that Turner was undergoing an assessment of its own scheduling system. “These systems are so monolithic and so huge, that actually companies are frightened to do anything about it.” There was laughter around the table as participants recognised the same hurdles in their own organisations.


Stevenson concurred: “There are some things so entrenched in your business and so huge that even if they are a bit fl akey and crude and clunky, you stick with them because changing them is so diffi cult and costly.”


Competing screens Alla Salehian of TIMA asked the roundtable what they thought the timescale would be of the evolution away from linear workfl ows and delivery. As a news agency, TIMA deals with a great deal of user generated content — which can be globally available before a traditional broadcaster even gets wind of the story. Given that 40% of global advertising revenue is still driven by broadcast, the transition might be slower than we think. “I think what Avid is doing is absolute right, but how long will it take?” Tom Cordiner believed the two value chains would coincide for a long time. He pointed to the variability between markets. In India, for example, there


is a large population that gets its information largely from traditional broadcast, whereas other more developed markets have adopted a more varied value chain.


BT’s Mark Wilson-Dunn added, “The latest research that we’ve commissioned at BT Media and Broadcast suggests that something like 98% of viewing eyeballs in the UK are still watching a linear TV experience. You switch on and say ‘Feed me.’ And I can’t see that changing any time soon.” Wilson-Dunn believed that audiences will ultimately choose the viewing option that is is most convenient and effective for them. “You default to the choice that most fi ts your


lifestyle or your condition at the time. If I’m watching a football game or a movie, I’ll watch it on the biggest device possible. But if I’m stuck on a train, I’ll watch it on an iPad. Now, if you look at the viewing habits of kids, they will multitask across everything. Another thing is that the brand loyalty to a particular channel is gone. There’s brand loyalty toward particular programmes.” Though user-generated content has begun to play an increasing role in informational media, especially news, Wilson-Dunn doesn’t see it replacing traditional news gathering. He brought up his experience of the Cutty Sark fi re — the initial coverage was user-generated video captured on the scene. The access was immediate, but after the continuous repeating of the video by the broadcasters, Wilson-Dunn found himself craving considered analysis and coverage from the scene by professional journalists.


“And I think that has fed back into the news organisations. News now has gotten a lot more compelling, there’s a lot more information, the format’s a lot better. I don’t see a generational shift away from linear TV happening any time soon, but I think the choice of being able to consume media at different times and different places is absolutely there.” ITV Studios’ head of


production innovation, Martyn Suker, believed there would be


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