01 Sept 2006

Do you remember those early TV ads touting broadband? In its struggle to describe what broadband could do, BT showed herds of rhinos bursting out of a manhole in some suburban road (this was meant to depict Discovery Channel-type wildlife content bursting out of the broadband connection). Well, the TV industry may have struggled to believe it at the time, but now it's almost reality. Everything, it seems, will soon be on the web.

Broadband penetration is rising and in places like the UK internet advertising spend is growing quickly. Given the pace that the internet is fragmenting ad revenues for broadcast media, this may not seem surprising, but the new thing about all this is the number of big media players jumping onto the broadband wagon, driven by the success of free, user-empowered sites like YouTube and MySpace. Those at the back of the queue risk not being part of the coolest sites and therefore could lose the younger audiences so beloved by big advertisers to their rivals.

In case you have been living under a rock with no access to an internet connection, MySpace and YouTube are big news in the web world and their impact is reverberating well beyond. According to web measurement firm Hitwise, YouTube had a 29% share of the US online entertainment market in July and served up 2.5bn videos, accounting for 60% of all videos watched online in the US. Nielsen/NetRatings reckons the site has nearly 20m visitors each month. MySpace and its 50m visitors per month has already been snapped up by News Corp.

The head of YouTube, founded only last February, has vowed that the site will host all music videos ever made in the next 18 months. Now that's a pretty powerful virtual gauntlet to throw down in front of big media. No wonder Viacom recently signed a big distribution deal with Google Video. Playing catch-up is OK as long as you don't start too far behind.

The other big new thing in all this is the revenue model, or as the web folks say it, "How do you monetise all this content and yet keep those web audiences glued to their PCs?" The interesting part is how fast big media is moving away from the litigation approach pioneered by the music industry (remember how much good it did them) to trying to figure out how to add adverts and/or payment models to the content they put on offer on the web.

Apple and its iTunes model kick-started the whole re-think about payment models. While big music gnashed its teeth and worried about eroding CD sales, Apple delivered a cool-looking portable player and beat the labels into submission to a one-price point per track structure. iPod and iTunes took the world by storm and acted as a trailblazer for what others are now doing with video content.

Missed an episode of Prison Break last night? Well, News Corp has decided that by October you will be able to pay US$1.99 (e.1.55) and download it to your computer. Can't be bothered to drive to the DVD rental store for the newly released X-Men movie? Well, pay US$19.99 and you can have it on your laptop on the same day the store gets it. Want to watch CBS's Evening News on your computer rather than on a TV? You'll be doing that - with accompanying advertisements as mandatory viewing - from this month.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Broadcasters from CBS to Fox and Sky to Channel 4 and ITV in the UK are all jumping in. In fact one could argue that the removal of ITV's CEO Charles Allen was at least partially to do with the City's perception that he had not moved the biggest UK broadcaster into 'alternative' distribution platforms fast enough.On 19 Oct 2006, at 21:50, John Harrison wrote:

In the end all the web-as-distribution-platform does is provide another way to get to an audience. And if that audience is willing to pay a premium to see a show or film at the same time that it is broadcast or put on DVD, great.

But the thing that is really unnerving big media is the ability of the web audiences to be more than just passive viewers. They are called 'users' for a reason. They want to adapt, change and play with the content they see on the net. Digital media is made to be manipulated and this is a tough thing for big media to swallow because it changes the way content has traditionally been made and sold.

The race to get web-friendly with big media's content is therefore causing ripple effects. The BBC in the UK is among those leading the charge to empower the user to have access to and play with its archive. Ashley Highfield, the BBC's director of technology and new media, said in August he hopes the BBC's online archive of content will eventually allow users to compile and edit their own TV shows from the clips available online. Just how John Cleese and others feel about that remains to be seen (and possibly negotiated).

Just how user interaction and the growing trend of people to generate their own content will play is still being worked out, but certainly by the time you've read this column, another few thousand hours of TV content will have been made available to download. Better stop reading and start downloading.