THE CREATORS OF ICRAVETV.COM (remember that?) predicted, just by launching their web streaming service in 1999, that the momentum pushing TV programming off the tube and onto the net – and beyond – was unstoppable.
Although they hadn’t sorted out licensing and rights issues before making online streaming a tantalizing, if forbidden, fruit, the service was too far ahead of their time.
That time is now.
Content producers of all kinds are on the cusp of a frenzied push to move digital video beyond TV, to make greater use than ever of Internet-based broadband channels, and to go further, into the hands, or at least handhelds, of individuals. As always, though, there’s a boring, legalese subtext beneath the glittering surface and as always, the devil is in the detailed issue of rights, which are still being sorted by broadcasters everywhere.
The trend has been under way for several years with streaming video here and there on the net but when full-length episodes of such high-octane programs as Lost were made available for download onto MP3 players and video cell phone owners ordered CBC Olympic highlights and other packaged news and sports feeds in recent months – the tide has grown to a tidal wave.
This year’s Canadian upfront sales market, prefaced by major announcements from networks like CBC promising to plan for multi-platform distribution of all commissioned production, highlighted the prominence of the new digital content destinations. Everyone is still selling regular TV ad time, of course, but they, or their programming colleagues, are also selling side dishes for video iPods or cell phones or VOD or “broadband solutions” to extend brands and simultaneously reinforce the drawing power of the original program properties.
(The Internet is still the hottest choice for off-TV ads, especially in the U.S. According to a report from Nielsen Monitor-Plus made public July 19, U.S. advertising spending in all media climbed 5.6% in first quarter 2006 but spending on online display ads in the first three months of the year surged 46.4% from the first quarter of 2005.)
The overall approach of the broadcast industry to multiple platform distribution and sales is probably as it should be, according to a Green Paper released last month at the Banff World Television Festival (search "Banff" on Cartt.ca for our coverage in June). The paper, published by Nordicity Group, concludes “on-demand television will not destroy linear TV, but broadcasters will need to adjust… by creative use of the Internet, as well as acquiring Internet properties that assemble large broadband audiences.”
For example, MTV Canada will take part in a Global MTV Video Music Awards Video Diary Competition both on-air and online starting this week across 25 MTV channels around the world. The competition will give 25 pairs of winners a trip to the 2006 VMAs, marking the biggest ever competition around the VMA franchise on a global scale. MTV viewers worldwide can enter their videos in the competition through www.mtv.tv/vma.
While digital content for mobiles is buzzy (but not yet revenue producing and still a little buggy), broadband streaming is currently bringing new focus to the potential of the Internet as a mainstream distribution platform.
In announcing next season’s highlights, Corus Entertainment stated simply that the modern marriage of true minds is all about hooking up digital content with interested viewers, wherever they happen to be.
“With the launch of 20 new shows this fall,” says the media release, “Corus Kids television delivers an unparalleled line-up of entertainment….And to give kids and their families even more choice and options, many of our series’ will be available on a number of platforms. Whether it’s on-air, online, on mobile or on-demand, we are committed to being everywhere our audience is.” And Corus reports solid ratings from last year, solid upfront sales this year, with higher CPMs, especially in prime time. All of which means more eyeballs to see cross-promotions for other platforms.
Corus owns many youth channels, including YTV, Discovery Kids, and Treehouse, which means its audiences are full of early adopters. Its treehousetv.com web site has taken off, with 11 programs available on a VOD basis – $0.99 per episode and $3.99 for movies.
Youth-skewed channels also populate CHUM’s roster and, despite Corus’s success with VOD for the very young, CHUM’s top content exec doesn’t favour the same approach to capturing the handheld market.
“People don’t want full episodes on their cells,” says Roma Khanna, CHUM’s senior VP content, without a second’s hesitation. Her certainty no doubt flows from years of experience as a mover, bender and re-shaper of video, including a principal role at former new media opinion leader Snap Media, which morphed into QuickPlay Media, a packager of content for handhelds.
Just the same, Khanna declares CHUM to be “the most progressive broadcaster in this area.” For example, CHUM has partnered with yahoo.ca to offer on-demand access to such programs as VJ Search, Canada’s Next Top Model and others shows on MuchMusic, plus headlines on Citytv.
One of the latest innovations in the “mobile experience” is a successful joint venture between CHUM Interactive and Rogers Wireless Communications – almost a branded cell phone. According to the interactive site, the “MuchPhone is a youth targeted prepaid mobile that allows music and entertainment fans to connect directly to the excitement of Much culture and features exclusive content including celebrity voicemail, video downloads and ringtones.”
To all this on-demand product, CHUM adds mobisodes, cut downs of 12 shows, including FashionTelevision, MovieTelevision, Ed the Sock, MuchMusic Video Award performances and others, video snacks for downloaders on the go.
Khanna says CHUM has “more TV content on more platforms” than its competitors, and it’s all “free for now.”
Is it paying off? “There’s not really any money in downloading, she says. But CHUM must expect good return-on-investment in future, not only because these services are only free “for now” but also because it’s exploring “streaming entire channels… New technology is all about becoming comfortable with the uncertainty,” she said.
Until its major push leading up to the 2006 upfront, CTV’s Internet sites featured clips and video to alleviate the text-heavy approach of some telecasters. Some producers were creating mobisodes, although CTV hadn’t used any in its own distribution deals, and CTV News operated a web-based clip service.
CTV had also foreshadowed its own launch of the CTV Broadband Network, featuring four broadband channels that live on ctv.ca. Its MTV Overdrive features full-length MTV shows and music videos. Kris Faibish, CTV’s VP digital media and EP of MTV Overdrive, says the company hopes In: Depth, which focuses on musicians, “will be one of the first shows made for broadband, with the secondary goal of migrating to TV.
“Broadband is video-based and must have the same quality that broadcast will have….We’re not shooting in HD (on MTV) yet, but looking to do so in 2007-08. If we greenlight made-for-broadband for TV, it will be HD, I expect.”
Two-and-a-half months after the broadband launch of MTV Overdrive, ctv.ca has added a “broadband player to highlight our Canadian shows and give (the site) a more interesting presence. For instance, we can stream longer interviews that are U.S. content, that couldn’t be aired in full on E-Talk Daily because of its Cancon (obligations).”
Six Canadian shows are or will soon be available via the broadband service: Whistler, Canadian Idol, Instant Star, Corner Gas, and Degrassi are there now, while Robson Arms will arrive in August.
The broadband is generating “tons of traffic,” Faibish says. “Moving forward with the CTV broadband channels – MTV was a big confidence builder.” She says this service will “cover its costs in the first year. We’re projecting there’s a real business there and we’ll see where it all fits together with VOD, DVD, mobile, iTunes, etcetera.”
MTV Canada has already obtained, thanks to its relationship with MTV International, the rights to stream full episodes of foreign programs on mtv.ca. Shows include Laguna Beach, Real World and Pimp My Ride. According to Mike Cosentino, CTV’s VP, communications, “there are more hours of full-length content on MTV Overdrive in Canada than on any other broadband player in North America.”
With CTV saying its broadband network will recoup costs within a year and everyone else who spoke to Cartt.ca (including Global, CBC, CHUM, and AAC) noting that revenue models and rights protocols have yet to be sorted out for digital downloading – where the content will live on a handheld rather than on a central server, for example – streaming looks like the cost-recovery/profit potential favourite of the moment.
On the other hand, there are signs of progress in the rights quagmire. Barbara Williams, Global TV’s senior VP of programming and production, says the Canadian Television Fund has agreed to a (revenue) model for private broadcasters to follow for CTF-funded programs. “It has agreed to separate (the negotiation of) traditional (broadcasters’ rights) and non-traditional rights. There’s to be a two-week window to complete the negotiations around the broadcast rights," she explained.
In other words, broadcasters would negotiate their “traditional” rights – and discussions continue as to the definition of “traditional” – and would finish that off and take a break before going back to the seller, most likely a producer, to negotiate multi-platform rights, however those end up defined.
“Broadcasters are agreeing,” Williams says, “that for non-traditional rights, revenue sharing should happen, if revenue should exist.” She adds that Global has started this type of negotiations with some indie producers, but Internet and games platforms might be explored sooner than handheld platforms.
“We’re not ready for mobisodes. We’re not sure the money can be explained adequately," said Williams. "Bits and pieces of things are way easier than long form. (But) how do we pay for (downloads of) Falcon Beach?”
Susan Tolusso is a freelance writer and editor, based in Ottawa.
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