Media Heavyweights Consider the Technological Future of the Industry

Content may still be king, but consumers are willful subjects,
according to panelists at Digital Hollywood’s 2006 Media Summit, which
gathered movers and shakers from movies, TV, cable and satellite,
advertising and marketing and other corners of the industry in New York
City yesterday and today. At a state-of-the-industry roundtable
yesterday, a cross-section of industry executives considered the idea
of where media is moving.
Addressing the much-hyped idea of convergence, moderator Kevin Roberts,
worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, suggested that the word itself
is not suggestive of the real issue. “When you talk to consumers, you
hear ‘divergence,'” he said, arguing that audiences are insisting on
experiencing content on their own terms – on platforms they choose at
the times they find most convenient. “We’re in the world of paradox. We
are not in the land of either/or.”
Andrew Lippman, a senior research scientist at the MIT Media Lab – and
the panel’s lone academic – agreed that technology is helping consumers
wrest power from the hands of content owners. “CEOs will not be in
control” of any coming media revolution, he declared, eliciting murmurs
from the heavyweight crowd.
But MTV Networks President and COO Michael Wolf pointed repeatedly to
increased ratings at the cable channels under the MTV umbrella and
insisted that the rise of alternative channels, like cell phones, would
not come at the exclusive expense of existing media. “My
12-and-a-half-year-old son is running his own IT department in his
bedroom,” quipped Wolf, referring to a kid who burns DVDs, spends lots
of quality time with his cell phone, and uses his PC to load content
onto his PlayStation Portable. “At the same time, he’s watching a lot
of TV. The more devices they have, the more experiences they want.”
When Daytime is Prime Time
Wolf floated the idea that, as viewing paradigms expand and transform,
“daytime becomes prime time,” noting that even when people are in
situations where they can’t sit in front of the TV, they may be able to
use portable devices to access MTV’s streamed services. “We’ve created
our own disruptions at MTV,” he said, explaining that the network has
always tried to ask where its audience wants to be in the future. That
meant that when MTV debuted its popular reality-based show Laguna
Beach, it put it on TV, online, on cell phones, and on DVD. “TV is not
the center of the universe.”
William Cella, the chairman and CEO of MAGNA Global Worldwide, agreed
that new opportunities will build on, not replace, existing ones. “When
outdoor becomes digitized globally, it’s going to be awesome,” he said,
referring to the burgeoning digital signage business. “You will be able
to connect your shows to the populace walking the streets.”
And Cella described advertising, to date, as a missed opportunity for
the new platforms. “Once the opportunity for advertising happens with
them, an opportunity to create a robust environment for advertising,
there’s a lot of money going to be made.”
The Disney/Pixar merger cast a shadow over the entire conference, with
its implications about a changing of the guard in the way traditional
media companies are run. But MIT’s Lippman had his own ideas about the
changing business landscape. “The deals that speak to me are eBay
buying Skype, or Google threatening to wire all of San Francisco,” he
said. “There are 300 million Skype users – two years after it was
founded. Peer-to-peer communications on the Internet passed downloads
in 2002 – in spite of what Verizon tries to do to block it.” Lippman
then suggested that entities like Google and Yahoo are well on the way
to becoming networks. Later, Cella nodded to the “astounding” amount of
revenue Google has been generating.
In response to a question about the potential for developing markets
for new content paradigms to “leapfrog” established ones, MTV’s Wolf
noted the still-tentative position of the U.S. market in wireless
content delivery. “We’re using our international presence [in wireless
video content] as a laboratory for the U.S.,” he said. “This country is
way behind in terms of infrastructure.”
And the clearest summary of where each panelist’s head was at may have
come at the session’s end, when Roberts asked each of them to identify
the person who was going to have the biggest impact on the future of
media. BusinessWeek’s Dodge nodded toward Steve Jobs in his new role at
Disney. MAGNA’s Cella picked Comcast honcho Brian Roberts, and MTV’s
Wolf cited, once again, the audience. But Lippman, with an
international twinkle in his eye, posited a revolution: “I doubt you’ll
spell his name with the Roman alphabet.”