IBC2014 Executive Summary

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Partners not Predators Europe President Matt Brittin Delivers Google Vision

A true Single Digital Market Neelie Kroes, VP European Commission urges Member States to think Beyond Borders

Fragmenting TV Universe Professor Brian Cox OBE on Broadcast’s Cultural Responsibility

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Inside Sam Barnett MBC....................................................Page 04 Mohammad Abdullah TECOM...............................................Page 05 Ran Senderovitz Intel .....................................................Page 06 Ali Amiri Etisalat ................................................Page 06 Bill Baggelaar Sony Pictures Entertainment.............Page 08 John Footen Cognizant ...........................................Page 08 Anthony Geffen Atlantic Productions...........................Page 09 Matt Brittin Google ................................................Page 10 Tom Leighton Akamai................................................Page 12 Clyde Smith Fox TV ................................................Page 13 Pete Thompson Ericsson..............................................Page 13 Ken Morse Cisco...................................................Page 14 Douglas Trumbull Filmmaker...........................................Page 16 Don Shaw Christie Digital ....................................Page 17 Howard Lukk Pannon Entertainment.......................Page 17 Richard Welsh Sundog Media Toolkit........................Page 18 Niclas Ericson FIFA TV ...............................................Page 20 Ella D’Amato Drum...................................................Page 21

Knowledge on every level IBC attracts thought leaders from across the industry and around the world.

Bringing them together to share knowledge on technology, policy, economics and creativity is the DNA of IBC. These decision-makers come to IBC because it is the forum which sets the agenda for the industry. Our manystranded conference allows knowledge to be shared on every level.

The IBC Leaders’ Summit brings together top executives together for a closed door session. In private they talk about the real issues driving the industry forward – and perhaps limiting its growth.

This publication brings together the views of many of the delegates to the Summit. Other contributors gave keynote addresses in the main IBC conference.

Matt Brittin, president of Google Europe, talks about his company’s relationship with broadcast; visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull looks at some of the technological advances which may drive the future of film-making; David Abraham of Channel 4 in the UK discusses the evolution of

the broadcaster’s online strategies; and Professor Brian Cox OBE talks about the responsibility of programme-makers to their public.

This is a time of enormous change for the electronic media industry. We have passed the tipping point from an industry defined by its technology to a world of connectivity driven by consumers expecting content everywhere.

IBC 2014 focused heavily on this issue, and that debate will continue in our new series of IBC Content Everywhere events covering Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and Latin America. Are we seeing the death of broadcasting or the renaissance of content production?

I hope that you find the IBC Executive Daily stimulating reading, and that it gives you a flavour of the environment we have created at IBC. On behalf of the whole IBC team I wish you a successful passage through the seas of change, and I hope to see you here in Amsterdam for IBC2015.

Michael Crimp, CEO, IBC

Eric Huggers formerly of Verizon .............................Page 22

“We have passed the tipping point from an industry defined by its technology to a world of connectivity driven by consumers expecting content everywhere”

Tim Davie BBC Worldwide..................................Page 23 John Nolan Apollo20 .............................................Page 24 Professor Brian Cox OBE ...........Page 29 Tre Azam Myndplay............................................Page 30 Joe Inzerillo Major League Baseball......................Page 31 IBC Leaders’ Summit...................Page 32 Bruce Tuchman AMC Global and Sundance Channel.....................Page 38 Charlie Vogt Imagine Communications .................Page 39 David Abraham Channel 4 ...........................................Page 40 Denise Turner Havas Media Group...........................Page 41 Gill Hind Enders Analysis..................................Page 42 Richard Sambrook Cardiff University................................Page 43 Neelie Kroes European Commission ......................Page 44 Karl-Heinz Laudan Deutsche Telekom .............................Page 46 Simon Fell EBU.....................................................Page 48 Jette Nygaard-Andersen MTG Nordics......................................Page 49 Pravin Chandiramani Simulmedia.........................................Page 50

EDITORIAL Editorial Director: Fergal Ringrose Editor: Adrian Pennington Reporters: Kate Bulkley, Ann-Marie Corvin, Chris Forrester, Carolyn Giardina, George Jarrett, Andy Stout Photography: James Cumpsty, Chris Taylor ART & PRODUCTION Head of Design & Production: Adam Butler Editorial Production Manager: Dawn Boultwood Production Manager: Alistair Taylor SALES Sales Manager: Ben Ewles Tel: +44 (0)20 7 354 6000, Email: ben.ewles@intentmedia.co.uk Richard Carr Tel: +44 (0)20 7 354 6000, Email: richard.carr@intentmedia.co.uk US Sales Michael Mitchell Tel: +1 (631) 673 3199 Email: mjmitchell@broadcast-media.tv IBC Chief Executive Officer: Michael Crimp Publisher: Steve Connolly Managing Director: Mark Burton Published on behalf of the IBC Partnership by Intent Media Ltd, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN © The International Broadcasting Convention 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher.

Printed by Pensord Press, Tram Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood NP12 2YA, UK.

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Assessed to be in good health Sam Barnett CEO, MBC Group Region: UAE

By Chris Forrester

MBC’s CEO Sam Barnett told delegates at IBC’s keynote opening panel, Assessing the health of broadcast TV, that his networks are in great shape despite the challenges of signal jamming and some countries exerting pressure over social media in the MENA region.

There have also been the political and sectarian problems over the past months.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom.

Far from it.

“We have just won the rights to the important Saudi soccer league for the next 10 years, so we have added four channels to the line-up to cover this action,” said Barnett. “We are also discussing possibilities for Egypt’s main soccer league with our MBC Egypt Channel, and we have aspirations to bring high-quality content to soccermad Egyptians. Our focus now is to bring international quality to the Saudi matches. We think this is a very important move for us especially given the importance of soccer to the region.

“Saudi Arabia is building 11 new stadiums to boost the onthe-ground experience, and is tapping into this buzz. The games will be available regionwide, and the vision is to take them even further afield.”

Barnett, who gained his MBA at INSEAD, has been running the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) since 2002 when it relocated from London (where it had been based since 1991) to Dubai, and supporting MBC’s Saudi Arabian chairman Sheikh Waleed Al Ibrahim. The pair have grown MBC from a single channel to a massive network of 18 channels which dominates Middle East broadcasting.

MBC now has targeted channels for kids, drama, ‘action’, Bollywood and movies in Arabic, English and Farsi/Persian. Its influence via its

24/7 Al Arabiya news channel was modelled on the BBC for impartiality and professionalism.

MBC is widely recognised to be the local industry leader, and has adopted HDTV for its main channels and is also preparing for the arrival of 4K. It is the broadcast home for the immensely popular Arab Idol show (the first episode of the new season went out on 5th of September to an audience of 92 million), and its hugely important Ramadan dramas are a highlight for Arab viewing.

It is investing significantly in local production and last year opened its new O3 Drama Production Studios (and operated with Dubai’s TECOM and Stargate Middle East) where episodes are being created on an “industrial scale” and capable of turning out a show in a day.

“We have been bringing drama onto our networks from other Arab production houses, and often dubbing Turkish output into Arabic. We know that local drama which addresses issues of interest to our viewers in the region will then be watched, and they’ll do better than imports from abroad.

We see this as a big growth sector for us, and we hope to sell more of our output overseas. Our historical dramas have always done well for us, and have already been of interest internationally.”

“We have found a way to produce very high quality programming at a price that’s manageable”

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How flexible can Dubai be when Hollywood, Bollywood and others are themselves sometimes struggling to match audience expectations?

Dubai has developed into a leading media hub and production destination, and the government has made the development of a sustainable, vibrant media ecosystem a focal point of its vision for the future.

The Emirate has experienced significant growth within its media industry and has become a real media ecosystem, and particular focus has been placed on making Dubai a home to big projects and names.

Dubai has created cuttingedge infrastructure and facilities to cater to media companies as well as adapt to changes in the market, and has welcomed Hollywood and Bollywood films alike and a number of regional and local productions. Dubai offers flexible entry and exit to media companies and with

have accommodated large productions for extended periods of time, providing support, infrastructure etc. including MasterChef Arabia and The Cube. We have facilitated over 7,000 shooting applications since inception. Last year we welcomed 233 new business partners from across the media value chain into our portfolio.

IBC will bring IBC Content Everywhere to Dubai in January 2015. How important is it that local people get to see the latest in technology?

I think that it is great to give local people the opportunity to see the latest trends in technology and media from around the world in their own countries, and to create and sustain the spark of creativity. Dubai is the region’s leading events hub, with several events throughout the year dedicated to the media and technology industries, but international conferences such

“Seeing the latest trends in technology and media can spark creativity in Dubai”

Emirate with a vision Mohammad Abdullah Managing Director, TECOM Media Cluster Region: UAE Interviewed by: Chris Forrester

some of the top names and media professionals residing in Dubai, the Emirate is always ahead of the curve and able to stay on top of this thriving industry.

What are your clients asking for in terms of their next stage of development?

We provide our clients with cutting-edge infrastructure and facilities to support their development, including fibre links to teleport facilities across Dubai Studio City and Dubai Media City, which are fully SD and HD. We also have a teleport facility in Jebel Ali, through which we uplink several TV channels on radio satellites, and we have the fibres to support UHDTV. There has been criticism of Dubai’s costs for labour, support hotels, etc., (when compared with Cairo, Amman or Beirut).

How do you respond? And who have you welcomed to Dubai recently from the industry?

Ultimately it is about flexibility, and we will always do our best to accommodate companies of all sizes. We provide a one-stop shop for companies from across the media value chain, and we have facilitated large media productions, including film crews, cameramen and so on, and assess soft incentives on a case-by-case basis. Recently we

as IBC are valuable in bringing together the world’s top media and technology professionals. It is good for residents to have the chance to access industry expertise and ideas, as well as an insight into the latest trends from around the world, whatever the event or platform.

What is happening in the mobile video world, from your clients?

The UAE has one of the highest rates of smartphone penetration in the MENA region. This has had a real effect on mobile video, with more and more people consuming content on their smartphones, and more categories, including video, being created within the mobile segment. App developers within our community of free zone business parks are pioneering the creation of technology in Dubai, and YouTube and other online video providers are creating an increasing volume of video content for smartphones.

With the usage of smartphones continuing to grow, the industry is thriving. Content is now created with the question ‘how will that look on a mobile device’ at front of mind, which has created a significant growth opportunity; according to a study from the retailer Plug-Ins Electronix, smartphone purchases have helped to push up the average household spending on electronics in the UAE to $1,330 in 2013.

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Platform for world class partners Ali Amiri EVP/Carrier & Wholesale, Etisalat Region: UAE Interviewed by: Chris Forrester

Where is Etisalat today in mobile video/VoIP in MENA? Etisalat has launched its ultrafast 4G networks to accommodate the increasing demand for mobile broadband.

Etisalat operates in a country where 52% of handsets registered on local networks in Q1 were smartphones, a figure up by 10% during 2013 and 1% in Q1/2014. In the Middle East, the number of 4G connections will grow to reach 42.6m connections in 2017, representing only 9.6% of total mobile connections. We expect there will be two IP-connected devices for every person on the planet by 2015, many of which will be video-capable. Other studies forecast that video traffic to tablets and smartphones will grow at a CAGR of 216% and 144% respectively within the same period.

How is Etisalat addressing this market with innovation in technology, product or service?

We launched our SmartHub as a platform for international services focused on bridging capacity, reach and content to better serve the region. It has become the de facto hub for regional telecom services. This

Gateway to video over IP Ran Senderovitz VP Cable and Gateway Solutions & General Manager PC Client Group, Intel Region: Worldwide Ran Senderovitz is responsible for driving business strategy and product roadmap planning for profitability and strategic impact to Intel. He joined Intel as part of the Intel acquisition of the Puma product line from Texas Instruments and began his career with the R&D Unit in the Army, where he spent eight years, leaving with the rank of Major.

He received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Technion, Haifa in 1992 and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv

University in 2002. In 2007 he earned his executive MBA from Kellogg-Recanati (a joint programme of Tel-Aviv University and Northwestern).

What is your assessment of the market for mobile video over IP? Video over IP is growing rapidly as users now have an expectation to be able to access their TV content on any device – often times in the home. One of the key areas we see service providers focusing on is to extend their experience that

historically was only available on a TV set to other consumer devices by delivering it over IP. This is a transition that has impact across an operator’s network from the data centre to customer premise equipment.

How is Intel addressing this market with innovation in technology, product or service?

Intel delivers systems on a chip (SoCs) that bring broadband into the home and distribute it to all its connected devices. We provide gateway functionality and deliver quality of service for applications like video over IP and voice. Intel is proud that we were first to demonstrate 1Gbps download speed on DOCSIS 3.0 and now have extended that to 1.6Gbps with our latest Puma 6 family of products. Our extensible gateway platform is also a foundation for enabling

was possible with the addition of significant new services like SmartHub IPX and IX supported by our high speed 4G LTE network, 3G and fibre to the home. The hub continues to add new world class partners like Limelight, Level3, CDN Networks and Aicent and a robust content portfolio like Akamai, Microsoft, Yahoo and the world’s largest search and video provider.

What are the main challenges and opportunities in your region?

Consumer demand for video is seemingly insatiable, with video consumption over the internet and mobile devices growing at unprecedented rates. OTT online

device owners, 70% of tablet owners and 68% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching TV. Tablet owners in particular seem unable to put down the iPad while flipping channels, with respondents saying that nearly a third of the time spent using their device is in front of the TV. The challenge for operators is the need to invest in infrastructure to support increasingly high-speed services which support OTT video services such as YouTube.

How important is IBC Content Everywhere MENA to Etisalat ?

IBC Content Everywhere MENA is a very important event for Etisalat. It really helps us to demonstrate our capabilities in serving all the content and internet providers through our award winning SmartHub. Our

“Telecom operators are urgently looking for broadcasters to partner with on digital content” video offerings from aggregators have become major players in the video landscape.

Independent content providers have also launched online video services, and traditional pay TV providers are now launching multiscreen video offerings as well. According to a Nielsen survey of 12,000 connected

experience and understanding of this market's dynamics can play an essential role in extending the reach of international companies trying to reach out to the UAE. The continuous flow of partners to our SmartHub is a clear evidence of reliability in our capabilities.

new services such as home automation, smart energy, and media distribution.

What are the main challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for operators?

The main challenge we see lies in scaling their networks to support of an all-IP delivery of content that still provides the quality of service that consumers demand from their current broadcast TV experience.

How important is IBC as a platform for bringing about clarity on the issues of telco/broadcast convergence or mobile video over IP? IBC draws all the key players from service providers to ecosystem players and is a must attend show for us to meet with our customers and partners, network with industry players, and see the latest trends on the show floor.

“This transition has impact across an operator’s network from the data centre to customer premise equipment”

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Embracing change

High dynamic range game changer Bill Baggelaar SVP Technology, Sony Pictures Entertainment Region: United States Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington A studio veteran who served 13 years at Warner Bros and the last three at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Bill Baggelaar has witnessed a lot of technology changes such as the gradual passing of film to digital.

But what excites him today is the tremendous creative potential of High Dynamic Range (HDR).

“This is a game changing technology for the industry,” he declares. “A whole host of things upstream and downstream come into play. You partner HDR with 4K and you have a compelling experience for the consumer with images and

stories that we've not been able to tell before. I think a lot of the exploration into HDR is still to come as the technology emerges.”

Higher dynamic range offers a new level of tools to the creative “and it can tell better stories that make the consumer want to own the new devices and services that they can experience them on,” says Baggelaar.

As a key executive within the industry's most vocal cheerleader for 4K content, Baggelaar is aware that he has a balance to tread. “Resolution is a component and obviously driving some sales and driving

SDI will die Head of Cognizant’s broadcast consulting practice, John Footen also serves as co-chair of the Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS), joint taskforce of the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and is a member of SMPTE where he chairs the 34CS Media Systems Control and Services technology committee. If we need an expert on the future of SDI, Footen is that person.

“SDI will die. It was a technology that was the only way to accomplish the design goals we had in systems in the past, but IP methods now can meet our needs. In fact, in many ways, IP has marked advantages. For example, new feeds do not automatically mean a need to add more infrastructure. Another scalability benefit is inherent support for higher bit rate formats like 4K. “Aside from widely promoted technical and cost benefits there is another factor in why SDI must die. Our changing workforce.

Subject matter experts in traditional broadcast are becoming harder to come by while IT technology experts are

more easily found. This does not mean that broadcast IT approaches are just like standard IT approaches, but it does mean that the core base of technical knowledge is easier to find.

“Much of what we need for SDI to die is already available.

There are hybrid SDI/IP technologies available to ease the transition. There are standards for transport and more on the way. What is missing is the full plethora of production technologies – especially for live TV – that are IP native. But that is a statement that will not be true for long.

“The economic benefits of IP are justified: I think it can be argued that making further significant investments in SDI infrastructure should no longer happen. IP technology is ubiquitous and cheaper than ever. Moving to an IP based infrastructure will allow broadcasters to converge their current, parallel video and data networks into a single IP/ethernet network. The move away from specialised hardware to pure software has the potential to greatly

higher quality content whether that's new release theatrical or TV content or new direct to OTT services,” he says. “The driving goal of higher resolution is to help create a higher quality product which is a first step in a higher quality overall consumer experience but I don't think resolution alone is the long term play.”

SPE-owned post division Colorworks has been working with expanded colour gamut and HDR some time. “We've known that a rec.709 colour gamut is not a complete enough experience and we need to enhance the quality in some other way. We are able to work in HDR today, the process is not trivial but it is fairly easy on the post side.”

There is an issue on the display side (a lack of monitors capable of showing high contrasts) but the real hurdle, he says, “is devising a consolidated strategy for the industry that allows us all to deliver it in one way. This is hotly debated on the tech side. The HDR debate is not about its possibility, but about which solution and path to take to the consumer.”

“Certainly if we had HDR in the [UHD] format from the get-

reduce the cost for network origination.

“Not only can traditional broadcast kit vendors survive and profit, it is almost certain that they will. This is because the IP domain is just an infrastructure layer. You still need to do 'stuff' in real world environments. This is where the traditional vendors come in. They understand the workflows and other needs of broadcasters. They are the only ones who can effectively pull together all the commodity technology into kits that do actual broadcasting.

“With 4K and 8K on the horizon, the need to operate in a compressed domain is imminent and it might as well be tackled sooner rather than later. 4K adoption’s main impact on the conversion to IP is the decision of compressed versus uncompressed.

“For SDI, you have to bond several SDI ports together. The same applies to IP when uncompressed. However, if using compressed, you are able to use a single 10G line to handle multiple 4K streams. By switching over to IP and already settling on a compression standard, the infrastructure and environment will already be set up to support 4K when you need it.”

“The HDR debate is not about its possibility, but about which solution and path to take to the consumer”

go things would have been easier, but this is not an unresolvable problem.”

Baggelaar adds: “It is difficult for vendors to put out the be all and end all UHD and HFR display on day one. On the plus side there is some growth in the UHD spec so that the industry can come up with the right solution that provides value to consumers so that they see the benefit in upgrading over time.”

When it comes to 4K it is perhaps surprising that not all SPE productions are an automatic Ultra HD commission.

“We are pushing to do as much in 4K as we can but we pick and choose on a show by show basis,” he says. When partnering on co-pros there is a lot of consideration into what titles get

the UHD treatment and which are best done in HD. There are also creative preferences for particular acquisition media.

Also on Baggelaar's radar is experimentation with cloud services for production. Sony's professional technology arm is developing the Ci platform.

“We're leveraging the cloud for those things that are appropriate such as trying to harness the power of a distributed workforce shooting in one location, VFX in another and editorial in another,” he explains. “Cloud offers opportunities to leverage that without a lot of the effort we go through today. I don't know how close we are to an end-to-end cloud production but it will become more of a trend over time.”

“Traditional kit vendors can not only survive and profit... it is almost certain that they will”

John Footen AVP Broadcast and Advertising, Cognizant Region: United States Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington

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Embracing change “VR is a wake-up call.

It won't steal eyeballs but it could attract very important younger ones”

Taking natural history to new frontiers Anthony Geffen CEO & Executive Producer, Atlantic Productions Region: UK Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington It is testimony to Atlantic Productions' embrace of technology that the 2014 BAFTA-winning Natural History Museum Alive 3D was initially conceived as an app.

“I want our production's digital journey to begin with production not broadcast,” says executive producer Anthony Geffen. “I want to gather my audience early in the process so that we can talk about projects and build a community long before going to air.”

Part of that process may mean going live earlier than linear transmission. That could include live to cinema transmissions (walk throughs of the Natural History Museum as

trialled successfully by the British Museum to cinemas is an example).

Nothing is off limits for Geffen, who recently changed the structure of his company to reflect “a proper multi-platform scenario”.

Atlantic, and its joint-venture collaboration with BSkyB, is the only winner of a BAFTA for a 3D factual production. In fact he has won two, with 2011's Flying Monsters 3D a breakthrough for Geffen's approach to documentary filmmaking.

“We set ourselves a task of making incredible stories that work in 2D and 3D, and using new technology and new storytelling techniques to find different ways of bringing the

story to life,” he says. “We'd hoped 3D by now would have major distribution but it is only selective places. We're still making 3D: Sky wants to do it but on a lesser scale.”

Atlantic routinely shoots in 4K (occasionally 5K and 6K) for theatrical release and longer shelf life as well as for advantages in visual clarity. He's in post on the three-part Conquest of the skies charting the avian evolution.

“We used opticopters shooting in 3D in Borneo and in mid-air to fly along with bats and birds. We've advanced macro shooting, much of which is familiar to natural history viewers but shot in a studio with blue or black backgrounds,” Geffen explains.

Using a technique devised by Colossus, Vision 3 and ONSIGHT the focal lengths can be changed to enable foreground and background perspectives from smaller creatures “in ways that one couldn't imagine. We were stuck on how to push the story

forward but technology can often achieve that.”

It’s sports and movies that are said to drive technology innovation in TV but nature documentaries have to be up there too. “Natural history programming is a big ticket item which has a massive impact all over the world,” he says. “It means we can get the budget to push boundaries. This used to be just the BBC in the UK but that's changed with Sky. “People want to see a very fresh perspective and fresh technology can help achieve that. It's not just the wow factor of a new shot but the whole way of interpreting a world that is important.”

Ultra HD would seem tailormade for armchair explorers to visit the wilds of the jungle, the deep ocean, even a planet. But wouldn't virtual reality be even better? “Everything is about to change with VR,” he declares.

“Suddenly that very high quality 4K could be in your hand for the fraction of the cost of a TV. You could download content. It is

incredibly immersive.

“We've been working for years knowing it was coming.

There are massive breakthroughs in camera technology and headsets almost daily. I've seen mindblowing demonstrations of R&D under NDA.” The former BBC producer – whose credits include Hirohito: Behind The Myth and The Wildest Dream in which he followed the footsteps of George Mallory's fatal Everest expedition – is applying his narrative acumen to VR in three short films for Facebook-owned Oculus Rift and other headset developers.

“My worry is that it can't be like 3D,” he warns. “You've got to have really good content or VR will make people feel dizzy.”

It's why he set up a VR subsidiary called Alchemy, which merges Atlantic's production nous with the VFX skills of its subsidiary Zoo. “There is such a rush to get content out. We need to be careful.”

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Embracing change “We can be a partner not a competitor to the TV industry”

Matt Brittin President, Google Europe Region: EMEA Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington

Still doing

no evil

Underlining its 'don't be evil' motto to an audience perhaps wary of the power of this internet behemoth, Google's Europe president Matt Brittin stressed: “We are not predators, we are partners.”

His IBC2014 keynote 'Transforming TV and Beyond: Google's vision of video for everyone, by everyone and everywhere’ focused on disarming the audience of fears about Google's plans for TV domination.

“In technology the [technical] language gets in the way,” Brittin said. “TV is simply a device and is just a way of connecting people to sight, sound and motion content. Broadcasting is not going to die and people will continue to watch TV in 50 years or more. But they will also be watching on mobile.”

Some 2.5 billion people are connected to the web globally today, a figure likely to double by the end of the decade. The five billion dollar question, though, is whether Google is going to start investing and commissioning its own original content a la Amazon and Netflix.

Not yet, was Brittin's answer.

“Who knows what will happen in the future. We gave advances based on ad revenues to a number of production companies a couple of years ago and on some we lost and on some we won. That wasn't strictly commissioning but encouraging professional content creation companies to use our platform. That remains the right model for us. By being a platform built around a user community who can share and curate content, and by offering a set of tools to monetise content, we can be a partner, not a competitor, to the TV industry.”

He claimed: “We don't know anything about your industry but we do think we know about technology platforms.” These he identified as Android, Chromecast and YouTube.

Brittin's plea was for content owners, creators and broadcasters to partner with it on these.

One of the things Google is

looking at is connecting the big screen to the multi-screen. “The set today as a device is a bit like a 2006 mobile phone,” he said.

He argued that just as Android had hugely simplified the process of developing for mobile, so Google is concentrated on trying to make the TV experience as great as the experience on the mobile device.

“The biggest and most expensive screen is the one which is hardest to interact with and to operate. That shouldn't be the case,” he said. “We need to make the web work on TV. It's very simple to take an app built on Android for mobile and transfer it to TV. We think consumers want that experience across devices and working with Android we can take the TV of 2006 to the 2015 TV world in one single leap.”

It was pointed out that Google had attempted to crack TV before with Google TV. What lessons were learned from its failure? “If you are a tech company focussing on innovation and if are not trying and failing you are not trying hard enough,” was Brittin's answer.

“Android on TV will drive innovation in OS,” he insisted.

“Because it's free to use and an open system there are lots of discussions on the ways different people want to use it.

Plus it has scale. You can take an app and you can scale it with Android over Chromecast or if you're in pay TV you can use Android to improve the user experience while moving at the development pace of mobile.”

Having graduated from Cambridge University (where he came second in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race) Brittin's career has spanned the newspaper industry, McKinsey & Co and real estate.

He has also won World Championship medals rowing for Great Britain, was a member of the 1988 Olympic team, and more recently raised funds for the Paralympics by cycling the length of Britain, mostly in the rain.

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Embracing change Tom Leighton Co-Founder and CEO, Akamai Region: Worldwide Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington

The billion dollar question “Our mission is to make the internet work the way you’d want it to,” states Tom Leighton.

“We want it to be really secure, really scalable, really efficient and really affordable.”

Akamai, the ten billion dollar company he co-founded in 1998, delivers a large fraction of the media consumed worldwide.

“IBC is very important to us, a large number of our partners are here and we have a chance to see the latest developments related to media.”

That more video delivery is by IP is clear but the stats for delivery of the World Cup are still startling. Akamai alone managed 5 million concurrent users over its platform at one point, delivering 7 terabits per second of traffic for a single match.

Streaming media from that event was 10 times as large as the World Cup 2010: “And the next World Cup will be 10 times

greater again,” predicted Leighton.

“There is so much more you can do over the internet.

Interactive experiences, different forms of content, multiple different camera angles, companion stats – all at a viewer's command. It's a much richer experience.”

Couple that with the Internet of Things and there are countless possibilities for monetising content when you can reach people in and beyond the home. “In home, for example, you can truly merge social networking and live TV, or deliver on the promise of instant product placement and purchase by interaction with the media.”

Now Ultra HD is coming and Akamai spies yet further growth, but a problem too. “UHD does require a lot more data to be sent per second. The minimum

needed for good quality is 15Mbs connectivity.” Globally, 11% of connections are at that speed, tracks Akamai, with 47 countries now qualified for 4Kreadiness using this metric.

“A lot of homes don't [have this connectivity] which means they will not get UHD over the internet yet,” he says.

“It's not just the last mile but upstream into the carrier networks that is the challenge.

Akamai has pioneered and advocated serving media from the edge of the internet. That's why we place our platform of more than 150,000 servers in more than 1,000 places around the world to deliver on the demand for video quality.

“But you can't have UHD or interactive, personalised video over IP if you can't get a higher quality and affordable viewing experience at scale. That is one of the grand challenges. We

have a large number of the most intelligent people on the planet focussed on solving that problem.”

Number crunching is what Akamai does. The former MIT professor, who enjoys researching questions at the intersection of mathematics and computer science, says that math can overcome seemingly impossible barriers to scale that simply can't be done, affordably, with traditional approaches to media delivery.

“Math is a blend of art and science,” says Leighton. “There is an intellectual rigour: when you prove it you know it's true absolutely. There's also a beauty and an elegance to it.

“I really didn’t have any desire to start a company. But I did have a strong interest in technology and in trying to make a difference in the world and solve problems.”

“We want to enable everyone to go home and watch an Ultra HD video over IP”

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Executive Summary 13

Embracing change

The innovator's dilemma Pete Thompson SVP Mediaroom Business Group, Ericsson Region: Worldwide Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley The video industry is going through what Pete Thompson calls a classic innovator’s dilemma: how to adopt new technology and business models to keep pace with the rapid changes in video delivery and consumption while also continuing to support and grow the traditional business.

“It’s about remaining relevant in the marketplace,” says Thompson, especially as companies like Netflix are reshaping consumers’ expectations. “The question is how to continue to grow existing investments at upwards of 20% a year but at the same time position to be ready for the new kinds of competition.”

Thompson lives in Silicon Valley where innovation is key

“If the incumbents can figure out how to move at web speed then they can continue to hold the lion’s share of the market”

4K is already a rich asset Clyde Smith, the SVP of New Technology for Fox, has just finished a complete overhaul of his facility in order to handle playout to multiple second screen devices. He desperately wants established IP standards, but 4K doesn’t worry him too much.

“We are already big users of 4K in our football, baseball and Nascar coverage, and have been using the technology for three years very specifically,” he says. “In football, for example, we shoot the sightlines in the end zones, and it gives us insurance when there’s a question whether the player was in or out of bounds. We can go into that footage and extract good HD out of it and in some cases show fans the little puffs of white dust where the foot touched the line. You'd never see it in ordinary HD.” There are additional benefits from 4K, Smith finds. “We've already captured a ton of wonderful stuff in 4K. It gives us footage that we can study and work on in the lab, and also in very many cases put into the archive. We have some

memorable key plays, including those which have led to final minute decisions and which will be talked about for years to come. It is already a very rich asset.”

Smith says Fox is comfortable that it could shoot a show endto-end without too many issues.

But ‘live’ sport is still a challenge.

“There are gaps in the capabilities of the equipment.

We are still faced with too shallow a depth of field, and we have sensitivity issues especially in night events. We are doing a lot of lab work to better understand how we can resolve these issues.”

In part this is why Fox has no timeline to introduce 4K, claims Smith. “I suspect when we do start 4K we will all again be surprised at how long, and close, people will look at the screen. When we started in HD people were almost glued to their sets. And they watched the HD commercials! But in those days the audience measurement systems were not that sophisticated. Now they are.

Then, we couldn't monetise the improvement in viewing quality.

Now we could, and the industry needs to move to a census-type ratings system so that we can monetise 4K. “We are in a whole new experience,” says Smith.

“For most people the first time they ever saw HDTV was via a broadcast signal.

Now, 4K is being watched today on Netflix and other streamed services. Online is first, then cable and satellite will follow, and poor old broadcast will be last. And in the US, because of the broadcast regulations, it might be way off.”

The ATSC is drafting its ATSC v3 specification for the end of 2015, which will then take six months for ratification.

“Then the FCC has to act on that, and they’re not the speediest of organisations. So, we are a way away from any early adoption by [US over-theair] broadcast,” he says.

and consumer relevance is what it’s all about. With a background in music and games, the 45year-old joined Ericsson as part of its acquisition of Microsoft’s Mediaroom Business in September 2013. He and some 500 Mediaroom software engineers were added to Ericsson’s TV portfolio.

But the Mediaroom team wasn’t shoe horned into an existing Ericsson business; instead Thompson added some 700 Ericsson employees to the new business he now runs, including employees in Sweden, Canada, Atlanta. GA and China.

“The engineers from the Mediaroom side work on the application layer of software where the competing companies are Facebook and Google. This

brings a lot of new culture into Ericsson like how to set up software development and get high-value margin out of it.”

For Thompson, the answer to keeping ahead of the video innovation curve is to create a “smooth migration path” to a more modern technology platform while keep the existing business model chugging along.

He believes that the biggest risk to broadcasters is posed by the digital giants like Google, Apple and Facebook because they are cash-rich and can invest heavily to re-invent the entire TV stack.

“Rarely are the incumbents the ones that can innovate and rarely do they continue to own the biggest market share,” warns Thompson. “That said, there is a strong value proposition to the aggregation and the bundling of video services and the ability to have high quality and live TV. You also cannot assume that the quality will stay constant, so with 4K and other things coming there could be an on-going road map where TV quality is difficult to match.”

“The industry needs to move to a census-type ratings system so that we can monetise 4K”

Clyde Smith SVP New Technology, Fox TV Region: United States Interviewed by: Chris Forrester

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Embracing change

Planning for AI, IoT and tomorrow’s STB Ken Morse CTO, Connected Devices, Cisco Systems Region: Worldwide Interviewed by: Chris Forrester When you are up against the likes of deep-pocketed Apple, Google, Intel and the world’s telcos (each of which wants to ‘own’ the home), it is vital to be thinking well ahead. Dr Ken Morse is that deep-thinker, and presented his thinking at IBC. Included in the mix is Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and maintaining a role for the settop box (STB) or ‘home gateway’.

“The world is changing fast, and this past year or two has seen a huge proliferation of devices in the home. We are also beginning to see the IoT really begin to matter. The combination of technologies going into what we call ‘edge’ devices as well as home gateway products is changing our world dramatically,” says Morse.

“On the hardware side we all now expect routing to be automatic, except that it rarely is. The functionality that we expect from our TVs and displays is becoming further and deeper embedded in those products.

“They are already IP-based products, and so we are seeing IP to IP exchanges between devices – which sounds complex but the user wants, in fact demands, simplicity. And this applies not just to the last mile but to the last 10 metres in the home. Video is now frequently wireless, and frequently supporting many devices.”

Morse admits that some of his Cisco colleagues might

have their own thoughts, but his view is that to remove the STB from the home would be very difficult. “Remember, it is a low-cost, easy to manufacture and deploy unit, and where you want an autonomous device that suits how you send the signal into the home. In my view it remains the very best choice, which is why it is used so very much. The gateway is going to be around for some time to come.”

And for the future Cisco has its sights on the use of AI and the way decision-making is happening in the home environment. “It is the reason why we think the home gateway device will have a role to play because we see it requiring local decisionmaking. We are hugely excited by the prospects.

“It’s not about simple automation but about decision-making in a consumer-friendly way – and does not require you to be an IT super-hero in order to drive the whole thing.”

“We are also beginning to see the Internet of Things really begin to matter”

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IBC Big Screen Experience

It’s a kind of

MAGI Douglas Trumbull Filmmaker Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington

Doug Trumbull is a legend. His visual effects magic features in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner. He directed the sci-fi classic Silent Running which combined the smooth VFX futurism of Odyssey with a rusty, space junk look that predated Star Wars.

His invention of Showscan, a hypervivid film process that combined 70mm film with a high-speed frame rate, was a pioneering moment for film projection. He invested in Showscan competitor IMAX, helping to bring the large format out of its specialist niche into the mainstream.

Trumbull, now 72, is at it again. His new sci-fi short UFOTOG, screened at IBC2014, is made using a new process of his own creation dubbed MAGI. “The result is an immersive cinematic experience that cannot be described in words,” he says. “You must see it yourself to understand that MAGI offers an entirely new relationship between you and the action on the screen and a

new tool set for filmmakers.”

His patented technique pairs the 4K image from two cameras rigged for 3D and each shooting 60 frames a second so aligned that when played back through a standard 3D projector the picture is delivered perfectly in sync with the system's cadence.

“It delivers extreme fluidity of motion and amazing clarity with no strobing, no double flickering and a viewing experience that far exceeds conventional movie quality,” he claims.

He is hoping the industry will push to upgrade the Digital Cinema Package format (DCP) to embrace HFR technology. “I believe movies can be much more powerful than they are today without any adverse production cost,” he says.

How is that possible? “You start with the production itself. If you shoot a 3D movie, the camera and lenses are the same; the lighting, sets, actors and props are all unchanged. All that changes is the data.

Moore's Law is in our favour.

Today you can buy a terabyte of

data for $50. The result is an experience so much more powerful [than current cinema] and revenues in theatres will be increased.”

HFR has made a comeback, notably with Peter Jackson's first two films of The Hobbit filmed at 48fps, but the results were critically panned for their video look.

“I feel personally, as a filmmaker, that applying a super vivid technology like 3D HFR to a fantasy subject matter may be inappropriate,” he says.

“The Hobbit fell victim to the 'uncanny valley' [a term applied to the gap in empathy in the rendering of CG characters]. But when you dramatically increase the frame-rate to 120fps you jump over the valley to a whole new territory.

“Cinema has known 24 fps for 100 years and on modestly sized screens it's fabulous,” he stresses. “I'm not trying to change that – or threaten it. But if you want a different kind of experience, spectacular giant screen movies like Lawrence of

Arabia, then MAGI could be an appropriate way to make these kind of films.”

What about the aesthetic use of different frame rates within a movie? “Absolutely. I have a patent on it. In the same way we can choose black and white or colour or alter colour saturation or brightness or anything else the filmmaker has in their toolset, so the ability to change frame rates on virtually any pixel as desired will become part of cinema's future. For example, a film may be conventional in every aspect but when we get a fast action sequence you could ramp up the frame rate to erase motion blur.”

For decades it seems he has made a solo effort to push cinema to new technical frontiers. He is also a realist.

“The history of the motion picture industry is that is slow to adopt new technologies. Yet when a single movie – Avatar – can compel the industry to adopt stereo 3D projection this tells you all you need to know about what the audience want.”

“The ability to change frame rates on virtually any pixel as desired will become part of cinema's future”

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IBC Big Screen Experience

Cinema's future is bright Don Shaw Senior Director Product Management, Entertainment Solutions Business, Christie Digital Systems Region: Canada Interviewed by: Carolyn Giardina “Exhibitors who are enjoying the 3D ticket premium need to step up and install equipment that’s going to allow them to present 3D in the proper brightness,” warns Don Shaw, senior director of product management at Christie. “I’m not talking about 3-4 footLamberts; I’m talking about 14 fL.” Without that, he believes, 3D box office will decline.

At IBC2014, Christie (with Dolby) and with the co-operation of 20th Century Fox, presented

a screening of 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' and ‘Life of Pi’ in 14 fL 3D Christie 6P Laser Projection and Dolby Atmos the first time any audience in the world got to experience fulllength feature films in full brightness 3D laser projection.

One way that Christie and other projector makers are looking to address this issue is with laser projection. “You can get a lot brighter image on the screen with a laser projector,” Shaw says. “This is most

important for 3D presentations.

In 2D you would have 14 fL of brightness; in 3D it’s often the case that there’s only 3-4 fL of brightness on the screen.

“The overall effectiveness is a less immersive experience in 3D; people complain about headaches and eyestrain; and at

“Exhibitors need to step up to offer better 3D” the end of the day people are less willing to pay the premium for 3D film. Laser projection is a technical solution to this problem.”

But, he adds, there are other options for increasing brightness depending on screen size, particularly for small screens.

“You can upsize your projector, go to dual Zenon [lamps], and find more efficient 3D systems.

Laser is just one tool in the

toolbox that’s more specifically able to get higher brightness on a very large screen.”

But these new laser projectors are not without challenges. “The first challenge is cost (laser projectors can run several hundred thousand dollars),” Shaw says. “Probably part of the problem is that VPFs (virtual print fees) have not yet expired.”

These deals were developed to finance the digital cinema transition by having studios contribute to the projector cost by paying a ‘virtual print fee’ to the exhibitor showing its movie.

“But a lot of the bigger chains have the flexibility to move VPFfunded systems around to other auditoriums in their chains as their older units become obsolete,” Shaw adds.

“I believe that someday lamp projectors will be replaced—I don’t know if that will be in 10 years or 20 years,” he continues.

“But exhibitors won’t have to

change lamps anymore and that means they’ll be going to solid state Illumination, which generally means lasers for movie theatres. It’s just going to take some time, like any other technology, to reach economies of scale.”

What new opportunities lie ahead for theatre owners? “Most of the major chains have put in Premium Large Format auditoriums and financially they are doing very well with those auditoriums. But it is a limited market; there are one or two thousand total in the world.”

Computational Cinematography

Howard Lukk Director, Pannon Entertainment Region: United States Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington

In theory, all creative decisions from focus to look can be made in post to the benefit of storytelling and the bottom line.

Howard Lukk, formerly VP Technology at Walt Disney Studios, is an exponent of that theory at Pannon Entertainment. Computational cinematography – or 'Comp Cine' as he dubs it – is not yet ready for primetime, he believes; “but it has great potential and will eventually go mainstream.”

He was part of the team at Disney, with ARRI and Fraunhofer HHI, that developed a trifocal system to shoot and post the demonstration short film Make Believe. Acquisition comprised an Alexa paired with two satellite mini-cams and is primarily intended to eradicate the disparities caused by manually aligning two side-byside cameras/lenses on a stereoscopic rig.

However, multi-image arrays or cameras with plenoptic lenses could work for 2D by allowing refocusing after the fact and to retrieve extended dynamic range.

“The key advantage is that you can leave a lot of the

decisions to post so on the day you capture the entire light field and then manipulate the image in post,” explains Lukk. “I know that scares cinematographers since they want to be authors of the image. I understand that.

The authorship of the image moves into the post side so we need to get cinematographers more involved in that process.”

The trifocal “is a baby step”

Lukk is also a SMPTE Standards director and, prior to Disney, was director of technology for DCI where he was responsible for researching and documenting digital cinema specifications.

As such he keeps a keen eye on high frame rates, which the industry has stuttered toward.

“When we started on the DCI [specifications] we had to

“Multi-image arrays are a new type of tool that cinematographers should not shy away from” in this direction but Lukk believes this is where camera manufacturers should be placing their R&D bucks. “Most development is needed on the witness cameras in terms of greater resolution and greater dynamic range but Comp Cine will be like the transition between film and digital as far as its impact on workflow and pipelines is concerned.”

Lighting a scene for Comp Cine is just as important “until next generation LED and strobe lighting which permit you to relight after the fact,” he adds.

lock on a single frame rate throughout the motion picture rather than changing the rate within the picture mainly to keep costs down,” he explains. “As projection technology improves there's no reason we couldn't switch frame rates on the fly opening up creative possibilities.

“I would like to see the use of shutter angles explored ... an angle at 240º all the way to a 359°, combined with frame rate, can make a big aesthetic difference. I'd also like to see 2D films shot in HFR, where the story deserves it.”

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Dream factory moves to the

Cloud “If you want to roll out a trailer for a movie you need 40-80 media formats just to hit your broadcast and internet deliverables”

Richard Welsh Co-founder and CEO, Sundog Media Toolkit Region: UK Interviewed by: George Jarrett The virtualisation of digital cinema mastering and its integration into other cloudbased services was Richard Welsh's topic at IBC2014’s European Digital Cinema Forum event, Global D-Cinema Update.

“Ultimately movie delivery is going to move into this environment, just in terms of how it gets to cinemas,” he asserts. “Not cloud on its own: content delivery networks are an incredibly important part of the equation, but the entire IT structure element is what we have to embrace. The cloud is actually quite well defined in computing terms – it is the virtualisation of physical resource.”

Welsh started at Dolby as a sound engineer. He moved into digital cinema in 2003, and

subsequently fronted Dolby 3D. As Technicolor's head of operations for digital cinema, he gathered his ideas about transitioning post production and delivery to the cloud. “It felt like something that couldn’t happen within a large corporation,” he says.

Teaming with former Dolby engineering colleague Christian Ralph, Welsh developed software for creating a cloudbased platform for compute intensive post production processes and launched under the banner of Sundog Media.

“The industry has been trying to move from an interoperable technology to a true SMPTE standard,” says Welsh, also a Governor for SMPTE in EMEA. “That has been a difficult process because the industry

has struggled to roll that out.

From all of my career positions the SMPTE DCP is the Holy Grail, but that has been a difficult transition that has not actually happened. It is something that requires a catalyst.

“The other issue is capital investment. It is very difficult in the current economic climate.

Film has enjoyed incredible periods of stability with regard to formats. Broadcast has as well, but both are now finding that formats are almost consumer driven.

“Because we live in an IT world there is no barrier to that change. However, we are in a back to front situation because you have to make large capital investments to support any formats both in broadcasting and in movie making; there is a hell of a lot of resistance on the content side.”

Those rapidly changing formats and processes ought to be supported in a more flexible and operational way. “Do not spend the money on capex; spend it on opex. Move with the formats and only spend what you need to for doing the job,” urges Welsh.

The IT community is taking standards more seriously, and surely we need to see more integration between IT, telecoms, and media engineers?

“Yes. On one side you’ve got the infrastructure and the delivery channel, and on the other you’ve got the picture and sound quality guys; actually we need to merge and marry those two. That’s where it’s going to become important,” says Welsh.

What did he want to get across at IBC? “There are no limitations on the infrastructure available from the larger cloud providers. Those guys are servicing all sorts of industry sectors on a much larger scale than our industry is ever going to require,” he says.

“This is going to be one of the last industries to switch over to that way of thinking: I know that parts of the media business, particularly on the delivery side, embrace cloud massively. And cloud providers are leading the way in one respect, as they are becoming content providers.

You can transition to 4K in a snap if you are operating in a virtual environment because it is essentially an upgrade.”

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The impact of new players

Copyright: FIFA

Delivering a global experience IBC International Honour for Excellence FIFA TV

The FIFA World Cup is far and away the most popular single-sport event in the global calendar, and television audiences for its finals rival the Olympics.

Since 2007, television coverage of the World Cup, along with other FIFA competitions, has been the responsibility of FIFA TV. This is to ensure that everyone in the world benefits from the highest quality coverage and innovations in services.

Alongside the core broadcasts, which have been available in HD since the 2006 competition in Germany, FIFA

TV continues to innovate. In 2010 games were shot in 3D and broadcast live by ESPN and shown in big screen venues. In 2014 both 4K Ultra HD and 8K Super Hi-Vision was available at some matches, along with high frame rate capture and 360˚ immersive video.

Social media and second screen applications developed for the 2014 tournament included the ability to select additional content and added statistics. 10 million apps were downloaded, with peak daily activity by three million users.

Online viewing is now a key part

of this offering, with a peak streaming rate of 6.9 terabytes a second during the Netherlands vs Argentina match.

FIFA TV provides all of the coverage of every game to an extraordinarily high standard.

Rights-holding broadcasters around the world simply take the multi-lateral feed and add their own graphics and commentary. They can achieve this consistency and quality by providing an unrivalled product, creatively and technically.

For these reasons IBC bestowed The International

Honour for Excellence 2014 on FIFA TV. “This award pays a fitting tribute to the dedication of our industry-leading service providers who help us deliver the very best coverage of the World Cup to football fans all over the world,” says Niclas Ericson, director of FIFA TV division. “Together, we are able to make the World Cup a truly global experience for everyone.

We look forward to continuing this pioneering work with the broadcast industry as we offer the unique platform of the FIFA World Cup to help drive technology forward.”

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The impact of new players How do agencies help brands engage with audiences with ad-funded content?

“The opportunities are endless, and the challenge is making sure your clients are investing in the right type of content for their audience, creating communications products that add value. First, we work out what role content should play in the communications mix and then we start with what's interesting to the audience that the brand is trying to reach.”

Do these opportunities involve co-production partnerships or will brands reach out directly to consumers?

“Partnering is a very effective way to reach a broad or targeted audience with credibility in the beginning.

Knowing what a client's business ambition is for content helps you determine if long-term partnership is the best way forward or if a brand should create its own products/IP direct. You've got to be pretty interesting or entertaining to compete with the big guys and it most certainly isn't the right strategy for lots of clients.

A few will cut through and it will be exciting to watch those audiences grow.”

“We guide clients to create content the audience really values”

Who owns the audience now?

Ella D’Amato Managing Director, Drum Region: UK Interviewed by: Ann-Marie Corvin

How do you keep multiple stakeholders happy and still get the client's message across (as in What’s Cooking funded by Sainsbury’s for Channel 4, managed by Drum)?

“We always explain to our clients at the very start of the journey that making content is incredibly different to making advertising. The key is always keeping the audience in mind first, then the client’s needs. The broadcaster will always be thinking about themselves and rightly so: in the eyes of its audience they own the show, not the client.

“Earlier this year ITV Group Commercial Sales director Simon Daglish declared that ninety per cent of all ad funded content is ‘crap’ and that consumers ‘don’t give a stuff about brands’. Broadcasters like ITV don't need AFPs on their channels. If a show is good they will have enough money to fund it themselves.

“Simon isn't wrong, there is a lot of rubbish out there. It's our job to make sure that we guide clients to create content they are proud of and, more importantly, the audience really values.

Being part of the Omnicom network means we get to witness some great content stories in other territories too.

For example, The Voice was created

by OMD Holland – originally for Vodafone – and that show has done pretty well globally!”

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The impact of new players

Crossing the divide Erik Huggers Former SVP, Verizon Communications Region: United States Interviewed by: Andy Stout

Erik Huggers has been one of the most influential people in the roll out of IPTV. He joined the BBC in 2007 and was responsible for the BBC's Online, iPlayer, Mobile and Red Button services, and also led the BBC’s Broadcast and Enterprise Technology Group, BBC Archives and BBC R&D. More recently, prior to joining Verizon Communications, Huggers was President of Intel Media working to reimage television via the OnCue CloudTV platform. He interrupted his current sabbatical to speak at the IBC Leaders’ Summit.

Looking back on the development of the iPlayer, is there anything you would have done differently?

My original ambition with iPlayer was always to make it the default industry platform for all UK free-toair broadcasters. Imagine a single platform that would support both public service broadcasters as well as commercial broadcasters.

The next logical step would be to take that product global and stand a chance to compete with the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon and Netflix. I very much regret not having pushed that idea harder.

Having said that, it’s not too late for someone else to run with it…

How do you see the net neutrality debate shaking out in the US? Recent developments have me very worried about net neutrality.

As far as I can tell there are two key differences with the rest of the world. First, in the US there is no real competition in the high-speed data market. US consumers mostly have a choice between two providers of which usually only one offers truly high-speed access. Second, it’s my belief that the regulators in Europe have real

teeth and are willing to bite whereas in the US a former cable/wireless industry lobbyist runs the regulator.

Does linear broadcasting still has a future?

Linear TV remains essential in the media mix for a very large portion of the audience. These are 50year-old habits that have not changed quickly. While we've seen enormous increases in ondemand, most consumers simply do not know what to watch and trust their favourite channels brands to be the curator. In the long run, live linear will become a medium for live sports and mustsee TV where first run episodes are only available on the channel.

Everything else moves to ondemand.

What has been the impact of new players to date?

Companies like Netflix, Apple, Google and Amazon are leading the way by innovating with great user experiences, business models and commissioning of high quality internet first content.

The board of every established media company is laser focused on figuring out what these changes mean for them.

Is there anything you think Europe needs to learn from American practices?

The main difference that I have seen between Europe and the US when it comes to innovation in the media space is the appetite for risk and a willingness to think big.

There's lots of incredible talent in Europe, but unfortunately it lacks the ecosystem of companies and investors who have a drive to change the world. As a result major American corporations may dominate Europe's media space over the next decade.

“US corporations may dominate European media for the next decade”

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Executive Summary 23

The impact of new players “We’ve never been afraid to explore new opportunities presented to us by the digital landscape”

Embracing

digital Prior to taking up his current post in April 2013, Tim Davie was made acting BBC director-general from November 2012. He joined the BBC in 2005 from PepsiCo Europe where he was SVP Marketing and Franchise. Among his other current responsibilities he is chairman of the charity Comic Relief and vice chair of the Royal Television Society.

Tim Davie CEO and Director Global, BBC Worldwide Region: Global Interviewed by: Andy Stout At IBC2014 Tim Davie gave a trenchant explanation of the realities of transformation: specifically how BBC Worldwide is adapting to the new media world. This is a strategy he is more than familiar with since he is tasked with devising a plan to equip and safeguard this preeminent traditional media business for the future.

“The key to our success is that we’ve never been afraid to explore new opportunities presented to us by the digital landscape,” he says. “For example, we were the first UK broadcaster to partner with YouTube and our 11 branded

channels now have 6.2 million subscribers and saw views increase by 42% last year to 513.9m.

“We have established our key brands on social media sites, with our Doctor Who Facebook page alone attracting 4.7m fans.

We’ve embraced the growth of VoD by partnering with Hulu, Netflix and Amazon (deals include: delivering over 2,000 hours to Hulu in the US, Orphan Black to Amazon and Doctor Who and Sherlock to Netflix).

“And we launched BBC Worldwide Labs in 2012, focused on working with emerging talent in digital media to further our

understanding of how we can continue to be at the forefront of digital innovation and also ensure they get the opportunities to partner with relevant businesses be that ourselves or others. To date we’ve struck business partnerships with 11 of the 18 companies.”

He earmarks the emerging markets for the business as Asia, Latin America and CEMA. with BBCWW increasing its presence on the ground there, and in established markets; “so that we’re better positioned to respond to local demand for our content, brands and products. In terms of emerging platforms, mobile remains key especially where the delivery of BBC.com and video is concerned.”

BBCWW has been hugely successful in monetising online content via BBC.com. Since the launch in 2007 BBC.com growth is 62% (CAGR) and in terms of usage the site ended the last financial year with an average of

78.9 million unique users.

With Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson landing the BBC entertainment brand in hot water recently with some alleged racist comments, long-running sci-fi drama Doctor Who is the jewel in BBCWW's crown.

“Take the latest series for example; we knew that the appetite for the first episode of the new series spanned the globe following the success of the fiftieth anniversary, where we simulcast The Day of The Doctor in 98 countries and 15 languages.”

Fans across the globe were also kept up to date with an ambitious online and social offering. The show's YouTube channel published 24 videos relating to a promotional tour, which have generated nearly 1m views to date.

“The rate of engagement to this content is almost four times the normal rate we see on what is already one of the most

engaged channels within our network,” says Davie. “Nineteen percent of views were offplatform, embedded across dozens of sites with Facebook driving the most external traffic.

Our content was viewed in all 216 of YouTube’s territories, with both Mexico and Brazil sitting within the top eight countries for viewing (in early September).”

Impressive indeed. But, BBC in-house produced content aside, co-productions have never been so important and in most cases this now involves multiple partners. “For example Frozen Planet saw BBC Worldwide bring together seven partners, the highest number for one series. Last year we struck our first original co-production with Atresmedia on the drama series The Refugees; and we became the BBC Natural History Unit’s principal co-production partner following the end of its long-running partnership with Discovery.”

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The impact of new players

New brand funding John Nolan Managing Director, Apollo 20, part of All3Media Region: UK Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley

Five years ago, the idea that online video subscription services like Netflix would be shaking up the broadcasting world would have seen you laughed out of most TV conferences. For prescient people like John Nolan, whose new, uber-position at content producer All3Media is all about how to innovate funding models for advertisersupported content, the speed of acceptance of online subscription models underlines his view that ad-funded content must be the next outlier set to become mainstream.

Nolan is a more than 20-yearpioneer of what used to be rather derogatorily called advertiser-funded programming (AFP) but has now become more acceptable (and better produced) and has itself been transformed into ‘branded content’ or ‘native advertising’.

“The online subscription

model is complex, sophisticated and successful as a funding model and there are some very big players like Google, Amazon and Apple’s iTunes all in it,” says Nolan, MD of Apollo 20, the unit that oversees branded content across the group of indie productions companies under the All3Media umbrella. “The business model that still hasn’t been cracked is ad-supported video. How do advertisers get involved in consumer experiences in these new platforms? My job is to innovate the funding model so that brands can be part of the mix.”

The key to the future for Nolan is to recognise that the audience owns their own viewing schedule these days and their only worry is what they are paying. “If people want to watch Game of Thrones they don’t care what platform,

channel or device it’s on. What they do care about is how they are paying for it.”

The fact that brands are involved in content funding is no longer controversial, certainly not for millennial viewers and also not for producers and broadcasters who are both looking for new ways to fund programming.

Nolan has launched brandfunded channels on TV and

work” to be done among the stakeholders of brand funding because the creative agencies have their own entertainment divisions; the media agencies have set up content operations; and the media trading groups have started acting like banks to fund programming and leverage distribution. Nolan believes that the answer is not to stick to legacy business models but to innovate and

“The ad-funded market is now mature enough to be genre-based” online as well as put together brand-funded programmes like the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge and Shell Driven to Extremes, in conjunction with Discovery. “Working at the group level of All3Media makes me busier and potentially more profitable. I have 10 deals I am working on now.”

There is still some “tricky

bring new money to the programme making and distribution market.

“I am asking myself what are the new commercial funding models for long and short-form content,” says Nolan. “The key is to not distinguish between the different distribution platforms because the consumer doesn’t.”

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Preparing for the future “The responsibility of the TV industry is to be at least partly Reithian”

Television in an expanding universe Professor Brian Cox OBE Region: UK Interviewed by: Andy Stout Professor Brian Cox's books and TV programmes about science have been read and watched around the world, and he is very much at the forefront of a new generation of scientist/broadcasters making science engaging and accessible to millions. Professor of Particle Physics at Manchester University and a key part of the ATLAS and the CERN Large Hadron Collider projects, he is passionate about the role of television in the 21st century.

All of which made his IBC2014 keynote ‘Television in an Expanding Universe’ unmissable.

“It seems clear to me that the trend will be towards increasing fragmentation and perhaps towards the elimination of the 'channel' as we know it,” he says. “That’s already happening with on-demand services like iPlayer, Apple TV, etc. This will be seen as a good thing in some circles, in the sense that there will be more choice but there are also significant downsides if you see television as a powerful cultural force.

“The increasingly oldfashioned model, where channels such as BBC1 broadcast a diverse range of programmes to a more captive audience, is important if you see one of the functions of television as being to operate as part of the education system – introducing people to new ideas and new subjects that they may not otherwise have come across,” he said.

“Whether this is a rearguard action – and in reality, we’ll all have to ghettoise at the feet of the market – is a good question. But even if such

fragmentation is inevitable, we can regret it and ask what that will do to society in the longer term.”

There is of course a genuine thirst for knowledge. Cox says that he's met very few people not interested in the great questions: Are we alone in the Universe? How did the Universe begin and how will it end? How did life on Earth begin? How did humans evolve? And even the not so profound questions, such as: What happens when you fall into a black hole? Can we build a time machine?

“If science programming is on the back foot then it is because of a lack of conviction amongst broadcasters, and a lack of appreciation of the responsibility of the television industry,” he says.

For the Professor, one problem in modern television is the amount of time and budget given to writing and pre-production rather than the filming. People’s time is expensive, he believes, and that tends to compress the writing phase. A relatively inexpensive way to make better programmes would be to allocate a slightly increased budget to the writing time.

Are some subjects, such as a detailed examination of quantum mechanics, still largely beyond the scope of primetime examination?

Not so, says Cox. “The problem with quantum mechanics on screen is that it’s very difficult to make it visual.

The ideas themselves are not un-presentable by any means.

What we need is a clever director or executive to come up with a defining idea for a series.

In Wonders of the Solar System, [head of BBC Science] Andrew Cohen had a simple idea – tell the story of the planets using landscapes on Earth. We need something similar for quantum mechanics, and that’s the hard bit! The physics is easy.”

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Preparing for the future

Mind over matter Tre Azam CEO, MyndPlay Region: UK Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington

Dramatic movie and TV narratives are so last century.

They are set in stone. The audience watches passively.

But there's a revolution coming, claims Tre Azam, “bringing a level of gaming interactivity to video that's never been achieved before. Soon we will be using our thoughts to participate in games, TV and movies.”

His invention, MyndPlay, is one of a breed of emerging technology using brainwaves to control what we can do with content. He describes MyndPlay (the company) as manufacturer, research house, service provider, consultant … and part Jedi.

Billed as the first mind controlled video and movie

platform, MyndPlay uses an EEG (electroence-phalograph) attached like a sweatband around your forehead to pick up tiny electrical signals from the brain. “This tells us what state of mind you are in. We then allow that to control the direction or influence the outcome of a movie,” says Azam, who conceived the idea while working as a trauma therapist.

In fact, the product uses NeuroSky's headset with MyndPlay's custom video player to monitor mental activity during critical points in specially designed films, and offers multiple outcomes depending on your focus and relaxation levels.

“The basic premise was 'can

you make people have fun while they are training their brain? Yes, if you can make them realise they are not training their brain.”

Existing films can be edited for the technology, but content created specifically for MyndPlay produces the best results. “The YouTube generation are experienced video editors,” says Azam. “If you can create content with a mobile phone or camera then you can also create mindcontrolled interactive games.”

Directors love it because it gives them a new way to see their movie and allows many people to have a different experience based on how they watch it or feel it.”

Growing up in Hackney,

London, Azam started work at the age of ten building PCs in his father's factory. In his teens, he was teaching groups of men three times his age about the technology.

A serial entrepreneur – viewers of the UK version of The Apprentice may recall his appearance as a contestant in 2007 – he started documentary production outfit Treite Labs in 2009 before launching MyndPlay three years ago.

“I have about a hundred ideas a day but I have to go through a process of working out which to take forward. It has to be innovative, imaginative and something that disrupts an industry – and to make me a little bit of money on the side.”

“Soon we will be using our thoughts to participate in games, TV and movies”

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Preparing for the future

Managing

fragmentation Joe Inzerillo Executive Vice President & CTO, Major League Baseball Region: United States Interviewed by: Carolyn Giardina

“The complexities of the intersection of sport and technology and OTT has kicked toward a crescendo of radically different business and distribution models in how we communicate with our fans.

The exciting part is that there are a lot of validated models, and not necessary any of them are wrong. There may just be many ways of talking to your fans and getting content to them.

“We need standards that are actionable... and to drop some of the posturing”

“With all of these opportunities comes enormous fragmentation — in the business model, the devices, the technology. These things take their toll on the bottom line. Fragmentation can be a good thing for making incremental dollars; sometimes those are offset by the technical and operational challenges of delivering across the array. It used to be that if you wanted to get a lot of eyeballs watching something, you’d just buy a TV spot or participate on television. Now if you want to do the same thing you may need 30 different touch points —Facebook, Twitter, TV, OTT. The big thing is managing the fragmentation and deciding when is the right time to fragment to go after a group of users you think are going to have some staying power versus things that are very fad-like that you don’t see as having a lot of traction.

“We sell a lot of subscriptions; we have one of the largest sports OTT offerings that pay. We do sponsorships and advertising as well. An advantage to sports is, except for European football, we have built-in breaks. There are times where you can be charging for a subscription, but you still have two minutes you have to fill and people are expecting advertising. I think the most successful models that we see are ones that have a blend of sponsors, advertising and direct-to-consumer pay product.

“Chunks of the technology sector are bleeding money out of the sports and entertainment area because of all this fragmentation. That's really unnecessary. As an industry, the more we get standards that make sense and are actionable, and drop some of the posturing around standards, the more it would be better for everybody. I find it particularly interesting to see how these different business models mature globally. Traditionally, the TV markets have been very different between the US and Europe and Asia. Some of the business models that are direct to consumer work in a more universal way. Folk all around the world can relate to something like Netflix. It’s an exciting time.”

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IBC Leaders’ Summit David Bush

Nicolas Bry

Bruce Tuchman

Marketing Director, Sony Professional Solutions Europe

SVP, Orange Innovation

President, AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global

Jette Nygaard- Andersen EVP & CEO, MTG Nordic & Baltic Pay TV Broadcast Operations, Modern Times Group

Steve Shannon GM / SVP Content & Services, Roku

Michelle Munson

Alex Green

Jolyon Barker

CEO and Co-Founder, Aspera Inc

Director, TV, BT

Global Managing Director, TMT, Deloitte Niclas Ericson Director of TV, FIFA

IBC Leaders’

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IBC Leaders’ Summit Hugh Williams

Graham Lovelace

Darren Childs

Andrew Neil

Co-Founder and Director, Cirkus TV

IBC, Content Editor

CEO, UKTV

IBC Leaders' Summit Anchor

David Abraham CEO, Channel 4 Paul Lee TMT Head of Research, Deloitte Lesley MacKenzie Ingrid Deltenre Richard Lindsay-Davies CEO, Digital TV Group

Director General, EBU

Summit

EVP E-Entertainment, ProSiebenSat.1 Media

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IBC Leaders’ Summit

Leading innovation and change

The IBC Leaders’ Summit is an exclusive invitation-only event for 150 leaders of the electronic media and entertainment industry. It blends penetrating insights from influential speakers, independent and exclusive research from Deloitte, and the collaborative participation of C-level delegates in a day-long event that informs and shapes future strategy.

Designed specifically for the most influential and visionary people at the top of the industry, it took place behind closed doors so delegates could speak their minds, address the issues, and highlight their concerns in an open, inspiring environment.

The theme of this year’s Summit was Leading Innovation and Change.

Four high-level sessions, hosted once again by writer and broadcaster Andrew Neil, provided senior-level insights from thought leaders at the forefront of implementing change and innovation across the industry.

The IBC Daily Executive asked the keynote speakers to share some blue sky thinking about what technology they felt was going to disrupt or innovate media and entertainment in creation, management or distribution over the next 18 months, and also to indicate what technology excites them most when imagining media and entertainment in two decades time.

We hope you find their answers enlightening.

Steve Shannon, GM Content & Services, Roku The next generation of innovation in entertainment will be virtual pay-TV services. I expect we will begin to see many mainstream pay TV players begin to offer their

bundled packages over the internet, with customers streaming entertainment to their TV. These packages will be unique compared with traditional pay TV services,

with lots of great software and unique content to go with it.

I think that Bitcoin has the potential to be disruptive over the next few years. As an example, credit card fees are

insanely high, especially on smaller transactions. Bitcoin could solve that, and many other challenges that the banks and credit card companies put on the digital economy.

ourselves in a great sport or movie experiences whilst enabling a far less imposing viewing experience of general TV. This same flexibility, plus a fully connected world, will unleash

the true potential of connected learning, health monitoring and diagnostic applications that are critical to the future of affordable education, health and social services.

Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO, Digital TV Group The alchemists will find a way to blend real UHD (i.e. higher pixels, frame rate, dynamic range and colour gamut) with data (personal, group, small and big) driven targeted distribution. This will

be with a new tailored subscription and advertising models. No mean feat! When it comes to my vision of TV 2020, I have always believed that discrete video walls will one day allow us to immerse

Per Borgklint, SVP and Head of Business Unit Support Solutions, Ericsson The most crucial technologies are those that accelerate the global transformation towards true TV Anywhere. Cloud approaches with broadband delivery are critical. Ericsson also believes that LTE broadcast will revolutionise

video delivery and transform the way consumers access content.

It’s also clear that UHDTV services will become a commercial reality as TV viewers demand more immersive, higher quality

experiences. In Ericsson’s vision of the networked society, by 2020 there will be 50 billion devices, 15 billion of which are video enabled. As we move towards this connected world, we see a

wealth of opportunities for technology to bring entertainment, education and information to an expanding global digital market, empowering people, businesses and society as a whole.

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IBC Leaders’ Summit Nicolas Bry, SVP, Orange Innovation TV will become even more portable in the next 18 months.

Portable TV means a global connected experience over the day: you can start and resume your live show or ondemand video on any device, living room TV set, secondary TV set in the bedroom or

tablet, 4G empowered smartphone or tablet, in a consistent experience. It’s also about snacking TV all over the day; short video coming from your social networks, or content discovery from social TV feeds, or personal recommendation, that you will

save for later. In this context, smart phones will be even more your remote control for life.

Furthermore, an extensive ecosystem is soaring combining the IoT/connected objects/wearable devices/big data and APIs.

It will transform all industries, including media and entertainment, creating more personalised realtime experiences, and simultaneously extending the collective social experience around broadcasting.

more ways to enhance the fan experience at our competition. I believe that in 20 years’ time almost any audiovisual experience could be possible. We will

have the kind of technology that can truly recreate the full stadium experience of watching a FIFA World Cup match in your own living room.

resolution video to broadcasters on a global scale and stream content to the web in a variety of formats with only a few frames delay between capture and consumption. This opens the door to new ways for

consumers to view live, high resolution video on whichever screen they choose and for content owners to offer increasingly more value with every new digital experience they provide.

Niclas Ericson, Director TV Division, FIFA I think we are going to see rapid advances in the continued integration and exploitation of content across all platforms, with the use of social media and

sharing driving the consumer experience to new levels. This means that FIFA will be able to use its upcoming production and the content we create in many

Michelle Munson, President & CEO, Aspera A disruptive trend we both see and actively participate in is the growing use of cloud for media management, transformation, archival and delivery – even for live applications as recently demonstrated during the world

soccer tournament. It is now possible to send multiple digital camera feeds to the cloud using high-speed data transport, encode in near real time in the cloud and simultaneously deliver full

Lesley MacKenzie, EVP E-Entertainment, ProSiebenSat.1 Media Enabling consumers to get access to content that they really want, programmes that they may have missed, content that they might not even know they will love. Data enables us to drive that consumer experience and I believe that

personalised programming is one of the innovating trends that will emerge fully in the next 18 months.

If you asked me this question 20 years ago I would never had guessed the progression of OTT

distribution, the evolution of devices and the popularity of viewing on demand. So looking 20 years ahead, I believe mass television will still be dominated by big programming brands distributed by well known 'broadcasters' on an on-

demand basis which is viewable whether one is at home, outdoors or on holiday.

A small handheld device that projects high quality images onto surfaces like video wall TV, I believe will be the TV of the future.

Jette Nygaard Anderson, EVP & CEO, MTG Nordic & Baltic Pay TV Broadcast Operations, MTG The effective harvesting and management of data will better facilitate personalisation of content, services and price packages for consumers. It will also facilitate new revenue streams for media owners like gaming services, e-commerce, product placement. The

migration of services such as recording and storing data in the cloud will give consumers the chance to watch content without a set top box, across multiple devices. While delivering a host of benefits to service operators it will also create considerable

issues around rights management.

By 2020 content will become more immersive, more of an experience. If I were a Liverpool supporter I might expect to be able to choose which part of the ground I watch the game from on TV,

perhaps a 360-degree view of the stadium so that I can turn around and see the crowd; or from the position of the referee.

I'll certainly be able to watch in a seamless way with my friend 200 miles away, chatting in real time as though she sat next to me.

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IBC Leaders’ Summit Ingrid Deltenre, Director General, European Broadcasting Union There is much still to discover in terms of UHDTV. The EBU Technology and Innovation Department is collaborating with many bodies around the world to establish the best foundation for any future UHDTV phase-2 standard that should include high dynamic range, higher frame rates and Immersive multi-

channel audio. This will continue to advance but will not reach a mass market until receiver prices fall to a more manageable price point and broadcasters and content producers can justify the investments in next generation infrastructures.

With an unconstrained view of the future, one can imagine

multiple ways that media devices might evolve for consumer use in the home, the workplace and on-the-movelocations. For example: wearable devices lend themselves towards new programming where users and viewers can compare results and submit the highest rankings. Producers

will need to develop new policies for dealing with parameters they could not imagine today. The trend towards on-demand content will become even stronger as the content choice broadens.

Curation based on algorithms will become increasingly important. Interesting to say the least!

Erik Huggers, Former Senior Vice President, Verizon Communications I believe that H265/HEVC as the next generation video compression technology will have a major impact on the industry. Not only will it make Ultra HD possible, but

more importantly push mobile video to the next level. It will be very interesting to see what impact products like Oculus VR have on the industry.

These platforms have been

around for a long time, but perhaps the time has finally come. Furthermore, I am excited to see what happens when technologies like Apple Airplay and Google

Chromecast get more stable and mature. When that happens, streaming video from a mobile device to a TV set could become much more commonplace.

David Bush, Marketing Director, Sony Professional Solutions Europe Though it’s been here for the last couple of years, Ultra HD will continue to be the focal point for innovation over the next 18 months. What’s even more exciting is that this will be in parallel with the growth of live IP video production. IP promises

the possibility of realtime, cablefree remote production over long distances, from multiple locations. This will revolutionise the way broadcasters operate.

The proliferation and spread of mobile and connected devices promises to extend to all

corners of the globe, including the Third World, providing location-agnostic connectivity for every person on the planet.

The advancement of supercomputing and artificial intelligence is also leading towards sophisticated long-term

prediction of everything from weather patterns to consumer viewing habits.

Together, these innovations promise constant content demand and highly refined tailoring of content to audiences.

David Abraham, CEO, Channel 4 In the very long term the debate will be around the relationship between linear transmission and online broadband distribution and where is the equilibrium between those two

distribution systems. What will be the underlying economics and physics be of those two systems?

Currently, if we had screened the World Cup in a broadband only world no-one would have

got to see any of the matches. Everything would have crashed. That’s in the current world. So people can get excited by the online viewing that is occurring, but the system is

not able to deliver what linear can. So the question remains – is the long-term future a hybrid one or one where the broadband world delivers more stability? No one knows that at the moment.

BruceTuchman, President, AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global I would like to see a world where every household item, from the paint you put on your walls to the clothes you put on your body, are embedded with the smallest processing chips so that you see what you want,

where you want, any time you want, any size you want.

Twenty years from now it will be about the mobility and ubiquity of content. That will be a given and the ease of use will be extraordinary. The delivery

mechanisms will have to get up to speed to accommodate that. Content will follow you seamlessly. From a legal point of view, rights need to adapt to that all-encompassing, ubiquity. But the iPhone would

have been inconceivable twenty years ago, it’s so thin, so fast, has so much storage, so I wonder if what we will have twenty years in the future is inconceivable from here and now.

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Taking the pulse

Embrace disruptive technologies Bruce Tuchman President, AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global Region: Worldwide Interviewed by: Andy Stout Over the past two decades working in the broadcast industry, Bruce Tuchman has been intimately involved with many channels and broadcasters. Having first trained as a lawyer, he helped oversee international expansion for MTV Networks, Nickelodeon and MGM Worldwide Networks, before joining AMC Networks.

He currently serves as President at AMC - Asia Pacific Global, as well as president, Sundance Channel Global, leading the strategic distribution, programming and marketing of both. An expert on international broadcast and regulation, he spoke at this year’s Leaders’ Summit and also keynoted IBC's opening debate 'Assessing the health of broadcast TV.' “In the past month we’ve been noticing that we’re over the worst of the challenges that came out of the economic crisis in 2008 and we’re now starting to see expansion,” he says.

“We’re seeing markets bouncing back — and even growing — in Spain, Greece and other places.

Plus operators are very keen to address the challenges brought about by new distribution technologies.”

Asked how close we are to creating homogenous global markets for broadcast programming and whether that would be a good thing, he is clear. “No, and it may always be no, but with qualifications. If something is good it’s going to translate. The Hollywood studios have been doing that for decades; taking something provincially American and marketing it around the world.

“In 1994 I could not see any channels from India in the US, and now I can see what’s going on everywhere. The barriers have come down and exposed people to more things and wider things. But that doesn’t mean that people only want to see one

type of programme or genre, there will always be a market for martial arts films in the East, quirky independents in France, and baseball in the US.” Casting his eye back over his extensive career Tuchman describes it as an unbelievably dramatic twenty years. “If you look at it on a global basis, we started at a very limited, free broadcast environment. For most markets that represented the advent of pay TV, the advent of multichannel, and now people are asking what comes next.

“It remains amusing to me that when you’re negotiating or strategising in the business day to day, so much of the communication is all about, for lack of a better term, new media. But it’s the opposite for consumers.

If I use the term OTT

in front of my most media savvy neighbours, they’re like ‘Stop, what are you talking about?’ It’s all about the impact of digital technology, whether that’s in a closed or open environment, and though it may not have reverberated with the mass market much so far, it will soon.

Years from now, if not sooner, we really will transform the business.”

The question for Tuchman is not whether to shift to IP distribution models but who will break through first. “Everyone will have to accommodate and move to these digital modes,” he says. “Alongside your linear offering you have to have a very cohesive and eco-system friendly on-demand offering.

Those who don’t embrace that will be the ones who get disrupted in turn.”

“Those who don’t embrace digital will be the ones who get disrupted in turn”

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Taking the pulse The

software-defined

future Charlie Vogt CEO, Imagine Communications Region: Worldwide Interviewed by: Carolyn Giardina

The future of broadcasting is about IP protocols and software-defined environments that can take advantage of mobility, virtualisation and the cloud says Charlie Vogt, CEO of Imagine Communications.

With this vision, he predicts a bright future for broadcasters and OTT players, but asserts that there are “very few suppliers that get it and are prepared at the scale needed to participate in the window of time that’s going to be necessary.”

He continues: “It's said that there are tens of thousands of ‘snowflake’ networks that were designed in their own way, and that has created a lot

players see this as an opportunity to grow, and there’s certainly a lot of convergence between the traditional IT and telco and MSO landscape with the traditional broadcaster. I think that consolidation is going to spur a tremendous amount of innovation.”

Vogt — who joined Imagine in the summer of 2013 and led it through a transformative year during which it shifted from its longtime moniker of Harris Broadcast and acquired companies including Digital Rapids — believes the innovation will occur during this decade. “There’s going to be some early adopters in 2015, and a second wave in

“Consolidation is going to spur a tremendous amount of innovation”

“What is the ROI for 4K? I don’t see it yet”

of limitations for those broadcasters and content distributors to participate in the ‘future’ network.

“Networks need to migrate away from hardware to those that are defined by software, and move from proprietary to an open service-oriented network architecture. They need to standardise on IP, and take advantage of mobility, virtualisation and the cloud.”

With this model, clients "don't have to upgrade their network every 4-5 years because the hardware that’s tethered to the software has to be upgraded. Some very large

2016 and 2017, and before 2020 a lot of the major broadcasters and OTT players are going to be participating.”

He warns that what the players will need to watch is competition from those who are building out “more efficient and cost effective ways to provide content.”

On other topics generating attention, Vogt is sceptical that there’s an opportunity afforded by higher resolution. “I don't see the large distribution networks racing to deliver 4K when they are not fully monetising HD yet. What is the ROI for 4K? I don’t see it yet.”

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Taking the pulse

All together now David Abraham CEO, Channel 4 Region: UK Interviewed by: Ann-Marie Corvin By encouraging viewers to visit a separate universe for catch up TV and on demand, broadcasters are becoming imprisoned by their linear path warns Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham.

“If you perennially build up online brands such as the iPlayer or ITV Player into this destination, then in the long term you are moving towards discontinuation of your linear brands,” he says. “Broadcasters need to get them to work together – that way you are constantly reinforcing the strengths of both sides of what you do.”

Abraham used IBC2014 to announce the broadcaster’s intent to discontinue its wellestablished 4oD platform later on this year in favour of a more cohesive, All 4 offering.

This is a bold move, considering the free to air commercial broadcaster’s platform is performing well commercially – last year its online revenues grew to reach £60m. It has also now racked up 11m registered viewers and boasts the usership of half of all 16-24 year olds, the ad man’s dream demographic.

As Abraham demonstrated at the conference, All 4 – scheduled to be launched iteratively over the course of 2015 – promises to be more than just a catch up service and features a home page offering archive, simulcasts or a coming next option.

Further layers incorporate elements such as the broadcaster’s short form content service, which launched this summer, as well as interactive gaming.

All 4 will use the channel’s iconic ‘4’ logo to represent all its channel brands – which are reflected by several distinctively colour-branded animation blocks, which all link up to form the figure. A viewer may move seamlessly from one block to another and the purple E4 block will be replaced by Film4’s red

block.

The former advertising executive, who has also worked for Discovery Networks in the US and the UK, thinks that the channel-branding element is important for the channel to maintain.

“There is enduring strength in channel brands,” he says, “Ultimately linear brands are navigational tools – ways of reducing down infinite choice into something more managable.”

Thanks to Channel 4’s ‘Big Data’ initiative, which for the past three years has seen the broadcaster use Amazon’s cloud services to crunch vast amounts of user data, the All 4 experience will be increasingly personalised, containing recommendations based on viewing habits as well as carrying targeted advertising.

“We will be able to know who you are, what you like, what device you are using and where you are watching us, which will allow us to tailor the user experience accordingly,” adds Abraham.

As well as increased personalisation and ad targeting there is a third area that observers have speculated big data can play a part in – the testing of programme ideas for TV commissioning.

However, Abraham thinks this aspect of the initiative has been overegged.

“It has been

reported that Netflix literally do commissioning by data, but I’m slightly dubious about that. I think they look at the data and then make similar decisions as we do about what viewer’s tastes are. Big data does not spell the death of commissioning editors.”

He does, however, think that it spells the beginning of new revenue streams. “Our online business has the potential to be a £100m business and I expect more than half of that revenue to be data driven or enabled – so it’s driving yield and growth.

He adds: “We’ve effectively created a market that didn’t exist before – where big advertisers can use the tools that we’ve now got to target and advertise in an ever-more personalised way. “

“Having separate universes for catch up, VOD and linear TV is a big mistake”

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Joining the dots Denise Turner Managing Partner and Chief Insight Officer, Havas Media Group Region: UK Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley It’s safe to say that the one thing people are viewing a particular that is keeping Denise Turner up show. at night is how to track and rate “The Sky view data is people’s attention. In a world of impressive but it is household multiple screens, she says that based and not person based like ad agencies like hers are under BARB data and so it does not pressure to figure out how much give the total picture,” says attention at any one time people Turner. “Sky is less than half the are giving to their TV versus their households in the UK … We are tablet or other connected interested in how much people device. are watching XFactor in Virgin It’s an important Media and Freeview question because the “We live in a homes as well as in answer will dictate homes. Sky’s bite-sized Sky not only where ad data gives you a good attention steer but if you want agencies put their clients’ to know the complete economy” advertisements and picture of the delivery sponsorship of your client’s spots messages, but also what prices then you need to use BARB.” they can charge for them.

Turner also thinks there is a “There are different big challenge to measuring the measurements for different viewing of short form content on devices and we need to connect YouTube and other online the dots on that,” says Turner, sites. “With BARB you managing partner and chief measure loyalty through insight officer for Havas Media minutes watched but Group, part of one of the biggest with short form global advertising and public content you have to relations firms. “I’m not change your suggesting that it’s easy but if definitions and we can do that, that would be also think the Holy Grail.” about who is The dilemma is two-fold. First, choosing to effective cross-device and view that cross-platform measurement is kind of still sorting itself out. In the UK, content.”

TV audience measurement firm BARB has launched Project Dovetail to track viewing on other devices as well as traditional TV viewing on the big screen in the lounge. Second, there is what Turner calls the continuous partial attention phenomenon. “With laptops it was one thing but with growing tablet usage this is much more prolific and it means we never seem to have someone’s full attention.”

While she is impressed with the work being done by BSkyB with its set top box data measurement, the problem is that Sky’s data does not give a “full picture” of how all

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Taking the pulse

A hard habit to break Gill Hind COO, Enders Analysis Region: UK Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley

Enders Analysis has gained a reputation as a sage among consultants to the TV industry, so when one of its senior executives warns of the threat posed by connected TVs to smaller channels it's worth paying attention. Enders predicts that 60% of TV sets in the UK will be connected to the internet in three or four years’ time, which poses a threat to smaller channels because their audiences are so small already.

Smart phones and tablets will take away some viewing from the traditional big broadcasters.

But they can retain the big audiences if they are smart.

“When you are talking about an existing public service

“We think that online video advertising has impacted press display advertising more than TV revenue,” she says. “Going forward it will start to impact TV a bit more. Whereas now online video adverts represent 3% of total TV advertising, in three years it will be 6% to 7% of total TV revenues.”

Hind believes that broadcasters need to think about three things in particular as they embrace the new connected TV and device world of audience consumption. First, the need to put more resources into the distribution of content, making sure that it is available on all devices. “This is a change in technical resources but it is

“Getting the measurement system correct has to be top of broadcasters’ and advertisers’ agendas” broadcaster with strong content offers, including live sport and big Saturday night entertainment and long-running soaps, then the audience is really theirs to lose,” says Gill Hind. “The average viewer is consuming over four hours of TV a day and for a large part of the older demographic that will remain on the main set because that is a hard habit to break.”

Online video is attracting increasing amounts of advertising, but Hind says that proportionate to TV advertising, the numbers will remain, for the foreseeable future, quite small, with the majority of online video ads going to traditional broadcasters’ content that has been put online.

also requires a change in mindset,” says Hind.

Second, she believes broadcasters have to be clever about how they use short-form content, particularly as a marketing tool to drive audiences to their longer-form programming where they should continue to be able to attract bigger audiences and more lucrative advertising.

Third, the role of data, and understanding how to track audiences as they move from TV to other devices, needs to be front and centre. “Tracking your viewers and targeting advertising across TV, tablets and PCs and wherever else the audience might be, is key.”

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Taking the pulse

Command and control news is dead

Richard Sambrook Professor of Journalism, Cardiff University Region: UK Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington In 2009, after 30 years at the BBC, Richard Sambrook, its director of global news, departed the corporation to pursue his career in consultancy and academia. He has been vocal in urging broadcasters like the BBC, CNN or France 24 to change their act ever since.

“In some ways the biggest problem for news organisations is in the future,” he told the IBC Conference. “TV is still the biggest platform for news and people receive their news from this medium more than any other.”

But, says Sambrook, the audience is changing the way it wants to receive news, a change brought about by the extraordinary rise in mobile devices and social media. What this has done is polarise people's appetite for news between up to the minute

breaking news and in-depth specialist news that can be monetised, since people are prepared to pay to get it. In the middle it is dead and that is where TV news had traditionally sat.”

He adds, “It is command and control: we tell you what we think you need to know.

Broadcasters have experimented with different ways to be responsive (such as on-air Twitter feeds) but the efforts have been a bit clunky.”

The main technology that Sambrook thinks news organisations need to take heed of is the connected TV. “Smart TVs are not quite mainstream,” he says. “The user experience feels a bit like the very early mobile phones i.e not great. But it will improve rapidly.

So when you get a big computer screen in the living room that

“Audiences are not prepared to unquestioningly accept what they are told” can get anything from social media to web and mobile – what does this mean for traditional TV news producers?”

The issue is most acute, he feels, with 24 hour channels, a quarter of a century old concept now outflanked by the internet.

“I'm not suggesting 24 hour news should close or change overnight. Or that the evening bulletins should change – that is still a profitable use of airtime.

But broadcasters do need to look at how they can better integrate digital with the broadcast platform.”

He likens TV news to newspaper publishers a decade ago. Newspapers had to learn that 'digital first' was more than a slogan – it meant creating entirely different content distributed in an entirely different way to consumers.

“In the '70s we flew film back

from location. In the 80s we had mobile sat trucks and SNG in a suitcase. Today, most newsgathering and distribution is done by IP. The mindset of these organisations is stuck in the satellite age whereas audience demands are changing.”

He knows that it is not so easy for large organisations to alter course but argues that the culture of change is not being pushed hard enough right through the operation. While this inertia is ongoing, the news agenda could be wrestled from their control.

“Some audiences want to be active in news selection and some want to be told what a trusted news organisation thinks is important. I think audiences are not prepared to unquestioningly accept what they are told.”

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Taking the pulse

A true digital single market Neelie Kroes Vice President, European Commission Region: Europe Interviewed by: Chris Forrester

EU vice president Neelie Kroes has pursued a strong drive to see consumer benefits in telecoms (such as reduction of roaming fees) across Europe.

“We should be proud of the levels of competition we have promoted in Europe,” she says.

“It would not help Europe to move towards US-style duopoly. That said, we need to see that competition is not just about price competition: quality, and infrastructure competition matter too. The Commission has made a legislative proposal to make progress towards a true internal market for telecoms.”

Kroes is also fully behind 5G. “5G will offer totally new possibilities to connect people, and also things – cars, houses, energy infrastructures. All of them at once, wherever you and they are. This is hugely exciting. However, we are still a decade away from 5G deployment and we still do not have an EU-wide 4G network on which 5G will be built.

“Things are improving, but slowly,” she says. “Wireless broadband spectrum at 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and many bands above those have already been enabled for 4G by the EU. Under the Radio Spectrum Policy Programme, Member States have to ensure that these bands are made available to operators, with some temporary exceptions in the 800 band. It is much easier to implement 4G now than 3G was in the year 2000. 80% of the EU population is expected to be covered by LTE in 2018, but we can do much better.”

Kroes is widely acknowledged as being a tough cookie. One nickname given to her by Dutch colleagues is ‘Nickel Neelie’ because of her acknowledged habit of knocking heads together to push her agenda forward.

“For almost five years I've been urging Member States to license their 4G spectrum, facilitate investment in wireless broadband and extend coverage beyond urban areas so that no-one is left behind,” she says. “It's time for EU countries to put 4G deployment at the top of their digital to-do list, and support a true Digital Single Market.”

Earlier this year she launched a Public-Private Partnership on 5G. The EU is investing €700m over the next seven years and EU industry is set to match this investment by up to five times, to more than €3bn.

“But we need to think

beyond borders and come up with a global approach towards 5G by the end of 2015. The clock is ticking but there is also real progress. Just a few weeks ago we agreed with South Korea to cooperate on driving this forward and we are discussing with other international partners, too.”

She recognises that consumer demand is stretching some suppliers to their limits.

“Traffic is almost doubling every year and telcos are all too aware of pressure on their networks. In the longer term, 5G can help networks add capacity and improve capacity management. But the fundamental and more immediate problem is that network operators have not, and are not, investing enough in networks.”

Simply put, she says the main business of Europe's telecoms operators is selling and providing internet access.

Consumer demand and use is

“It's time for EU countries to put 4G at the top of their digital to-do list” booming and it doesn't make commercial sense for operators to under-develop or have sub-standard networks in a competitive market.

Kroes is also a fan of UltraHD, and says the building blocks are now in place. “We expect to see full deployment of Ultra-HD by about 2020. The Rio Olympics and other sporting events will be major drivers for take up. I'm pleased to note that non-traditional broadcast players, including mobile operators, are also increasingly interested in 4K TV and are running trials over 4G. The EU is also helping fund research to advance the adoption of open systems and standards like HbbTV. “But more broadly the introduction of new technologies will certainly have an impact on Europe's existing broadcast landscape of public broadcasters, commercial broadcasters and pay TV operators. The technical and legal conditions under which this technology is introduced should neither favour nor exclude certain market players.

To ensure media pluralism consumers have to have access to competing market players.”

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Taking the pulse Karl-Heinz Laudan Vice President, Spectrum Policy, Deutsche Telekom Region: Germany Interviewed by: George Jarrett

Karl-Heinz Laudan brought a chilling logic to the great spectrum debate at IBC2014. Answering the point that free to air TV is sacrosanct to recipient consumers, and the notion that losing 700 MHz is as far as broadcasters can afford to go, he said: “Giving up the 700 MHz band does not mean that channels have to be shut down.

“By switching to DVB-T2 with an HEVC coding scheme there will be a dividend that enables broadcasters to transmit more channels in less spectrum. But the channels have to be moved to lower parts of the UHF-band,” he added.

Laudan is the VP for Spectrum Policy with Deutsche Telekom, which he first joined in 1987.

Subsequently he joined the Federal Ministry for Post and Telecommunications. He then

The broadcaster community makes the point that mobile lobbyists never mention the consumer use of Wi-Fi. Is this a big deal?

“Wi-Fi is not a mobile technology: it is only portable. You must distinguish between the use cases. At home, where the consumer already has a broadband connection, Wi-Fi is the first choice for mobile devices, but could also substitute terrestrial TV,” said Laudan. “But for mobile reception only the mobile network is viable. My question is whether there is a mobile use case for DTT distribution. If not, there is no substitution between mobile and terrestrial TV.” Research done for the EU suggests that consumers will not use mobile services for the reception of linear broadcast, and that there is little evident

“If countries have targets for broadband, and if they earn money from spectrum allocation procedures, the usage of that money has to be decided at a political level” joined T-Mobile International to handle spectrum policy. With the expiry of that company his responsibilities were transferred to Deutsche Telekom.

Does mobile broadband deserve a bad press for what it has achieved with 800 MHz thus far?

“Look at Germany: It took one year to fulfill the coverage obligations and to build up a countrywide network with LTE800,” said Laudan. “Only with mobile technology can you have such a quick rollout. People have mobile broadband connectivity, but only with the bandwidth and speed that 10 MHz channels (per operator) can provide,” he added.

“With the 700 MHz band, the performance of the 800 MHz network can be doubled, so fulfilling the demand for more speed and bandwidth. The problem is that a lot of countries have not yet allocated the 800 MHz band of spectrum to the market. A harmonised approach in Europe would have been much more efficient.”

convergence.

“If that is the case, then there is no need to discuss if mobile networks can substitute terrestrial TV distribution. There are different use cases. Linear signals for stationary reception will be transmitted terrestrially by broadcasters, even though that could be done much more costefficiently via satellite or IP. Nonlinear content will be distributed via IP networks, including mobile networks,” he declared.

Was the IBC spectrum debate just another chapter of a political game that cannot fully resolve for two decades as broadcasters fight to keep 500 and 600 MHz, and take time to vacate 700 MHZ? “Due to global harmonisation arguments, the 700 MHz band will be used for mobile broadband.

Terrestrial TV will not disappear in a foreseeable timeframe, but the future of DTT will be decided by the consumer and possibly the broadcast operators, if they have to cover the distribution costs.”

Judicious approach reaps dividends

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Taking the pulse

The right to a

vibrant

platform

Simon Fell Director of Technology & Innovation, EBU Region: Europe Interviewed by: George Jarrett

Simon Fell became Director of Technology & Innovation at the EBU in September 2013. After a tough baptism, three things stuck in his mind.

“One is the time it takes to get things done at the ITU,” he says.

“Then there is the importance of spectrum to terrestrial broadcasters: that’s been uppermost on the agenda both before and after the Lamy report. Third is the sheer willingness of broadcasters across the EBU membership to work together.”

Prior to joining the EBU, Fell was chairman of the technical council at the Digital Television Group, and across his 35-year career he has held key technical roles at C4, ITV, Carlton TV, and in post production. Add his three years on the EBU technical committee, and he was the perfect campaigner to represent broadcasters (along with Jonathan Thompson and Lars

Bucklund) in IBC’s Spectrum Debate.

Have they been fighting a losing battle against the mobile broadband gang? “We put up a very strong defence and won the day in an audience vote,” says Fell.

The decision on 700 MHz was taken out of broadcast hands at the last World Radio Conference, but the Lamy Report gave temporary hope for a stay to 2022 at 700 MHz and hold over the lower spectrum levels until 2030.

“Looks like we start again, but the RSPG and CEBT will soon publish reports on the long term use of the UHF band. As of the end of 2015 countries will choose whether they want to give their entire spectrum in 700 to mobile, to broadcast, or find some way they can co-operate,” says Fell.

“But the nature of the game is that once you get spectrum for both uses (co-primary) then the

mobile spectrum plan tends to be the one that gets deployed, as with 800 MHz.” Will no room be left for PMSE and broadcasting?

“If that is going to be inevitable, the right time has to be given for it to happen because changing over is difficult. Compensation needs to be considered for those costs broadcasters will incur by having to re-engineer networks,” he adds.

“What’s in 500 MHz and 600 MHz should remain for broadcast for the foreseeable future. Broadcasters won’t consider any major changes to what they have in 500/600 MHz until 2030,” says Fell. “In terms of 700 MHZ we need to find dates that suit individual countries.

These dates can be as early as 2017 in places like Finland, where they have decided, all the way out to 2025 and beyond for some countries where heavy use is made of 700 MHz.

“The mobile industry talks about more mobile broadband and rural areas being covered – well, there is no evidence of that so far in what they’ve done on 800 MHz. Then there is the famous convergence argument – talk of using mobile services from low power/low tower and then broadcasting from high power/ high tower, and changing the use by time of day. That is just impractical,” he adds.

“They have got about 3000 MHz of spectrum, but what extra could they do in broadcaster spectrum that is so outstanding that they could not do in their own spectrum already?

Safeguarding everything below 700MHz would enable public service broadcasters and the European AV industry to continue reaching all sectors of the population and sustain broader content choice,” he concludes.

“Broadcasters have got every right to exist and have a vibrant platform, just as much as mobile broadband does”

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Taking the pulse

Cross platform

master Jette Nygaard Andersen EVP & CEO, MTG Nordic & Baltic Pay TV Broadcast Operations, Modern Times Group Region: Scandinavia Interviewed by: Ann-Marie Corvin

“The key to success is differentiation” Jette Nygaard Andersen has worked for MTG since 2003 and EVP & CEO of Nordic and Baltic pay tv since 2013. Before joining MTG, she was a strategy management consultant at Accenture, and also held positions at the Maersk Group.

What has been your online and on demand strategy, and how does this fit with your linear TV propositions?

We have a broad offer across a large spectrum of platforms, both the subscription as well as the free-TV business. This gives us ability to negotiate deals across all platforms, which we believe is one of the steps of winning in the future. We were early in launching our first subscription

VOD service in the Scandinavian market in 2007 (Viasat OnDemand – now Viaplay) which is offered as a complimentary TV Everywhere service to our own DTH satellite subscribers, but can also be offered as a standalone SVOD service. This has given us access to new customers and has helped build our subscriber base.

Has the value chain for pay TV operators been disrupted by IP players?

Obviously there is more eyeball competition. The key to success is differentiating and product development. We do this in several ways: by producing and showing local content, being the very best at sports (F1, NHL and Superligaen Denmark to name a few); by our

premium movie deals across all platforms (SPT, Walt Disney and NBCU), as well as continuing to launch new products – the latest being a very popular download-to-go service. We can also show our content across all platforms.

What’s more popular with your subscribers – binge viewing or weekly transmissions?

There’s room for both. To mark MTG’s premiere of the series 24: Live Another Day, we held a binge-viewing world record attempt setting out to beat the previous record. It succeeded – we are now in the Guinness Books of Records following 90 hours of binge viewing (set at MTG HQ in Stockholm, with actor Kiefer Sutherland

cheering on Twitter). Personally, I love binge-viewing series with my husband for a relaxing evening. But absolutely not for 90 hours straight!

Is broadcasting in danger or in bad health?

We used to be bound by our distribution platforms. Now we are limited only by our ability to seize and package great content and engage our consumers. The massive expansion of consumer time being spent on media is largely additive with TV, so we maintain a strong position. For example, during the Winter Olympics 2014 we achieved record free-TV audience shares of 60 percent in Sweden.

How does the Scandinavian market differ from, say,

Germany, when it comes to linear versus online viewing?

There are two things driving the premium and pay OTT market: broadband penetration and a high pay-TV penetration. In both areas the Nordics holds the upper hand. Almost 90 percent of all Nordic households have a great internet connection. In Sweden, every third household has a 100 Mbps connection, and fibre roll out is extensive. Our customers are used to paying for TV. As an example, almost two out of three households have pay TV in Sweden. Tablet growth in Sweden is up 45 per cent compared to last year. And every third Swede watches OTT every single day.

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Taking the pulse

The social science of

TV ads

The vast majority of TV ads cautions that changing how the continues to be sold using pretty vast majority of TV advertising straight-forward demographic inventory is sold will take time information, like men, 16 to 34 because it requires a seachange years of age, etc. But the in thinking. fragmentation of TV audiences By 2016 an estimated 10% – over the past two decades and or some $16bn – of all TV the development of more advertising (estimated to be sophisticated audience tracking $75bn market in 2016 in the US) technologies coupled with new will be sold using data with computational power has “more colour and more definition spawned a gaggle of new kids than just demographics”. on the audience tracking and ad And this portion of the market sales block. is set to accelerate substantially Among these is five-year-old over the next few years. Based start-up Simulmedia. According on research by MyersBizNet to Pravin Chandiramani it takes Media and Marketing, by 2020 the demographic the amount of “In the big audience based measurement tools that dominate the also data world and majority of the programmatic/ everything automated TV $70bn a year in US TV advertising to spot buying (the can be the next level: “We latter is not correlated” something that attach a lot of purchase data Simulmedia does) which gives us an idea of the will double to $33bn out of business outcome of the an estimated total TV ad advertisements,” he explains. spend in the US of $83bn.

Using data collected from “The whole notion of 19m set top boxes in the US measuring and re(representing about 50m aggregating audiences will viewers – bigger than audience gather momentum,” says measurement company Chandiramani. “It’s taken Nielsen’s 24,000-person panel) time to get where we are and combining that with now and some in the programming data from TV ad and agency world channels as well as purchasing still view what we are data, Simulmedia creates what doing with suspicion Chandiramani calls a “closed because it is a loop type of metric” where the change from the ad spots people view can be past. Beyond the correlated against their technical purchasing decisions. engineering aspect, “In the big data world there is also the everything can be correlated,” he social engineering explains. “But at Simulmedia we aspect and look not at correlation so much there’s a as causation. We are able to marketplace connect viewing to actual consensus purchasing.” that this still The company, which has needs to be raised $60mn in venture capital, built.” has had good success with retail and restaurants clients but Chandiramani who in addition to a business degree spent nearly two years studying the social interactions of baboons for a masters in biological science,

Pravin Chandiramani SVP Business Development, Simulmedia Region: United States Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley

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