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Beyond Distribution: Content Producers
Adapt to Context-Driven Value |
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9 May 2006 |
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The explosion of content from television producers bringing
original content to the Web may look on the surface like a
consumer content story, but it's really only a very visible
sign of a broader story impacting all content producers. In
a world with a limitless supply of content via a universal
Web traditional content distribution is on its way to
becoming a secondary business model. With the emphasis on
getting the attention of audiences saturated with content
options profitable publishing is less about controlling
distribution and more about helping others to push content
into its most valuable context without traditional
distribution deals. Original Web-first content production
is an important step, but without context-driven value the
job is half done. |
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Last week was the week that
television went wild on the Web. In a spurt of activity
to catch up with the rapid migration of young TV audiences to
online outlets numerous TV and online networks beefed up their
video program offerings. From the new CBS offering
Innertube, to the announcement of Microsoft's
MSN
Originals to
ABC television's launch of next-day online viewing of their
on-air program schedule (with ads) commercial television is
racing to go elbow to elbow with the explosion of new and
oftentimes original online video sources available from both
professional and amateur sources. While widely available
broadband service in the U.S. and beyond combined with mature
video infrastructure makes these services possible in the
technical sense, the real enabler is the changing attitude of
video producers. Long locked in to relationships with local
broadcast affiliates and cable outlets, television is feeling
its way gingerly through these old relationships based on
distribution to build new direct relationships with audiences
through online access.
The shadow of controlling distribution as a key tenet of
profitability hangs heavily on the content industry. From the
first clay tablets in ancient times to Guttenberg's press to
the age of electronics content producers have prized closely
held distribution channels as the key to their riches and
power. But then came the Web, where content flows with few
controls on its distribution. This is not a business philosophy
as much as it is an inherent design of the Web. The original
Internet was designed in the 1970's by the U.S. military to
overcome wartime communications disruptions between any sender
and receiver automatically. In other words, the Internet by its
very nature tries to overcome the distribution bottlenecks that
content producers have coveted. No small wonder, then, that
content producers wedded to long-standing proprietary
distribution channels have been slow to adapt to the Web.
But now that potential substitute products are cropping up
everywhere on the Web content producers used to controlling
distribution channels have little choice but to adapt their
marketing strategies to a post-distribution world. In doing so
they move gently to maintain revenues from existing print,
audio and video channels and to maintain relationships with the
organizations that manage those distribution channels for them.
It's not an easy balance - and one that can easily take one's
eye off the ultimate prize. Original and exclusive content for
their Web offerings helps to soften the blow to their existing
distribution channels, but it's all part of facing a hard and
uncomfortable truth: controlling distribution is becoming less
valuable than enabling the most valuable context for content
easily accessed by audiences that have abundant choices.
Be it video, audio, text or data, there are a few key rules
that will emerge as old distribution patterns merge in with new
context-driven capabilities:
- Separate your content user licensing from content
distribution channels. Many media companies
have jumped on proprietary DRM solutions to lock down premium
content, in effect re-creating traditional proprietary
content distribution relationships. While licensing controls
remain important, there are far more potential channels for
premium content than there are proprietary DRM schemes that
users will find to be acceptable before they opt to bypass
DRM schemes for less onerous controls. The emerging digital
exchange standards being backed by Sony, Microsoft, Apple and
others hint that a broadening of technology to support this
concept, but it's up to content producers themselves to
develop new standards for licensing in digital media that
will make it attractive for users to play by the rules with
licenses that can move to and from whatever devices and
channels suit their fancy.
- Make it easy for content to go viral. NBC learned
a lesson from earlier hacked distributions of popular clips
from their TV shows and started making it much easier for
viewers to view and
share clips with people. This builds up the value of their
Web site more effectively, but it limits potential content
shares to just a handful of clips. In a
post-distribution world content producers need to be able to
leverage users as key partners in content propagation,
allowing as many agents as possible to help content find its
most valuable context. In an environment in which technology
makes copying extremely simple and inexpensive globally, the
fastest and most cost-effective way to implement highly
valuable contexts for content is to make it easy for anyone
in the world to distribute content in the right packaging
that will ensure its producer appropriate recognition of its
value.
- Package distribution options as value-add features for
go-anywhere content. Though cries of "print is dead"
still ring out now and again, for the most part publishers
and audiences recognize that traditional media will be with
us for a long while. The question that still hangs out there,
though, is what should be packaged in these media and how. If
traditional distribution channels are no longer necessary to
service most audiences, then they can be packaged as
value-add services for people who prefer other media and
venues for content that they've licensed. We're probably a
ways away from theatre-screen-rental-on-demand movies, but
not far off from print-on-demand magazines and newspapers
tailored for individuals and highly focused groups that
leverage traditional distribution media as a custom service.
It will take a long while for most publishers and content
producers to adjust to a world in which distribution is
secondary to enabling content to find its own context as
efficiently as possible. But it is an exorable movement that
must respond to the fundamental economics of publishing in a
Web-driven era. The world has an infinite supply of content and
only a very finite amount of attention that can be gained from
highly mobile and fleeting potential audiences. The content
that can rise to the top of the list for that audience's
attention most quickly and efficiently is the content that will
ring up revenues most effectively. By pushing Web-first content
traditional content producers have started to engage the
post-distribution content model in earnest. But now comes the
hard part - getting long-established business models to take
the most advantage of that environment. Stay tuned for further
developments.
-
John Blossom
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