How to capitalize on content is a big concern at the moment. MIPCOM presentations and panels echoed the same sentiments about how to achieve profit from the content. A MIPCOM panel was composed of Andy Forssell (SVP of Content acquisitions and distribution, Hulu.com ), Jason Hirschhom (President, Sling Media Entertainment Group ), Daniele Fiansaca (CEO, Europe, Profero ), Ashley HIghfield (CEO, Project Kangaroo ), and Domenic Venuto (Vice Presidnet, Media and Entertainment, Avenue A Razorfish ). The panel discussed “where the money is” given the current economic status.
Current models are:
1. subscription
2. ecommerce
3. advertising or pay per click
4. Sponsorship and product placement
Each panelist discussed what their companies are doing to generate profit and how they utilize their content to its full potential.
Andy Forssell talked about what is happening with Hulu. Hulu is certainly not taking a backseat to the emergent behavior of content providers. Hulu is 100% free and ad supported, showcasing content from NBC, Fox, Sony Pictures, Warner, Viacom, Sports leagues and a hundred or so other partners in total . He mentions that Hulu is the fourth entertainment site ranked in the U.S. (behind YouTube and Viacom sites, which is based on Nielsen Ratings ).
He emphasised that “viewers want to watch more video on the net, not just clips but long-form. Aggregation is very important. Users don’t know what studios or networks a show is on, so we provide them with a good user experience that focused on the content they want to watch “. Like most of the content providers at MIPCOM he addressed the issue of advertising online. He calls overlays and video advertising is an excellent “opportunity” but added that Hulu doesn’t do “a lot of display because we want to keep it clean, we want to drive higher CPMs via user targeting and behavioral targeting on video advertising.”
According to the Nielsen Ratings Hulu is getting 10 million unique viewers, which means that distribution is “also a big opportunity. We are humble, we know that not everyone goes to Hulu.com. So we syndicate via blogger and partners like Yahoo and Microsoft. We want content partners to be agnostic to where the content is viewed.”
Jason Hirschhom had a lot to say about Sling Media as well. Recently Sling Media was acquired by Ecostar , who are the owners of a large satellite provider called DISH. Sling began as a hardware technology group-Slingbox technology. However, they moved into software realizing that “If you load our software you can watch and control your home TV from anywhere in the world.” Sling.com was launched in November and has been globally “very successful”. It aggregates “content from Hulu to UGC and Providers that don’t have TV shows but are making unique content.”
Ashley Highfield, Kangaroo, stated that project Kangaroo is a “‘dream’ that we are trying to bring to reality.” It is a joint venture with BBC worldwide, ITV, and Channel 4. With them in place it would be a one-stop catch-up site for all three broadcasters as well as independent studios and some others. He mentioned that there would be 10,000 hours of content at the launch and 7,000 hours would be free and ad-funded. The idea is that if a site offers the back-catalogue for free users won’t feel the need to pirate the content from another site.
“1.3m archive of content on the BBC exists, only 2% gets exploited – the aim with kangaroo is to have a service that uncovers this long-tail of archived content that hasn’t been exploited yet. So having 10k of these hours at launch will help us bring this to life…. From recent to the golden oldies” And, having done the math, project Kangaroo has determined that it is economically viable as long as enough people use it.
Fiansaca was excited about the future of media. “I don’t think it’s ever been this exciting…There is no such thing as new media and old media. The only thing that exists is new media thinking.” Having said that, social media is drastically altering the ways in which people consume media. Fiansaca continued to emphasise that “GEN Y are happy to take advertising if it’s relevant to them. If it’s personalized, you are actually helping the consumer – so you can command higher CPMs, yes, but in the end the consumer also benefits.” Once again, relevance to the consumer via the content is key.
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October 30th, 2008 at 2:28 am
[...] … Watercooler which enables sports and TV fans to engage with their favorite teams and shows within social networks, teams with online video service Hulu to use its new player for full-screen shows from Fox and NBC. Expect more social features to be embedded within real time video media –watching TV … How to Capitalize on your Content - a discussion of different companies [...]
October 31st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
[...] is Director of Future Media and Technology at the BBC, was announced as the CEO of Kangaroo. In a previous article from the MIPCOM articles he was quoted as saying that “1.3m archive of content on the BBC [...]