This was not the case at DigitalMediaWires's annual Future of Television Forum last Friday. Frank admissions by humble executives cut through much of the "corporate speak," demonstrating big media's willingness (or necessity) to move "Beyond the Box," the theme of this year's conference.

If I had to categorize the panels, I would either describe them as "consumer control" or "courting niche audiences". While I learned a lot and gleaned tidbits of new information, I'm going to look at the conference through my "broadcast news" lens for the purposes of this article.

Game On

"The big headline here is that the big players moving off of platforms form which they began," says Josh Sapan, President and CEO of Rainbow Media . He pointed to MTV's Overdrive , News Corp's acquisition of mysapce.com , and Time Warner's soon to be launched in2tv.com . The big media players are now moving beyond repurposing and are creating video content exclusively for the web.

At most conferences in years gone by, I would argue that traditional media executives spent most of their time defending their existing business models. Last Friday was a different story. Times are changing and fast. Big media knows it has to evolve and the first step is experimentation and sharing ideas. "We are testing every possible business model. We want to get great content to wherever or however people what it, whether for pay or advertising supported or a combination," says Larry Kramer, President of CBS Digital Media . He noted the recent CBS deal with Comcast to offer its top shows two hours after they originally aired.

Conversational Loop

My "ah hah!" moment of the conference came from Larry Kramer who described the emerging relationship between broadcasters and their audience as a "conversational loop". The days of broadcasters churning out content for their audiences to passively consume seem all, but over. "MSNBC putting the Nightly News online is a baby step. We are just beginning to invent internet video," says Merrill Brown, Founder of MMB Media .

The new relationship is something akin to the technology news site Digg.com . Not only does a two-way dialogue exist between reporters and the community, but the community plays an active participatory role in the development of content. "It's not just consuming it's participating. The news biz gets scooped everyday now by people on the scene," says Lewis D'Vorkin, Vie President and Editor in Chief of AOL News & Sports .

In fact, a story almost never really begins or ends . . . .it's ongoing, constantly being added to, updated, revised, and edited . . . all in real time. I would have to say the online encyclopedia, wikipedia.org is one of the best examples of content, developed and managed by a community.

Staying With the Brand

This might sound like blasphemy, but the almighty ratings may be losing their significance and quickly. "Auto manufacturers want you on the web because they are on the web. Television is still a branding play," says Kramer. Even the newer web measurements of unique visitors and page views may soon become irrelevant.

In a fragmented world with people moving from one platform to another, new measurements to capture the true value of "time spent with brand" are needed. In the next year, several new technologies will be introduced to make it easier for people to move video content from their computer to their television including Microsoft's new Media Center , Cisco's Linksys , Sony's Location Free , Slingbox , and Qualcomm's MediaFLO .

Unfortunately a new unified measurement system has yet to be developed for a multiplatform world, but there are definitely more conversations about ideas to replace the decades-old ratings system. Check this out . . . . CBS Sportsline enables Fantasy Sports enthusiasts to monitor all of their stats in real time conveniently from one screen . According to Kramer, some people have that screen up continuously for as long as 12 hours. Talk about getting your brand in front of that audience!

Adoption Levels of Consumers

With so many new technologies and buzz words floating around, it's hard to gauge how fast you really need to move on new trends or if they should be overlooked as "just a fad". The most clever description of how to describe the varying levels of the adoption of new technology by consumers came from Saul Berman, Partner, Media & Entertainment, IBM Business Consulting :

Massive Passives: The majority of the public is still very slow to accept new technologies into their lives that's why broadcast television isn't going away as we know it anytime soon.

Gadegtiers: These are the early adopters, the folks who run out and constantly buy the latest gadgets (myself included). While they only make up 5 to 10% of the public, they are just disruptive enough to put a dent in traditional media models. Generally this group is highly educated, affluent, male, and young . . . the most desirable advertising demographic. As they say, PVRs don't need to be in 90% of homes, just 10% to have dramatic affect on the broadcast business model. In case you are keeping track, PVRs are at about that 10% threshold right now (of course this will vary from market to market).

Kool Kids: This group is obviously the younger generations who have never known what it is like to live in a "scheduled" media environment. I would estimate that anyone under the age of 25 possesses very strong "on-demand" media habits. As they grow older, these new media habits will grow more pervasive throughout society.

The Real Lesson of the Day

Stick to your core. Content providers are going to be less affected by disruptive technologies than by those distributing content. However, unique compelling content will rule the day. "Internet news is very primitive. Much of it is commoditized and it's not brand sensitive. It's fungible. Everyone dealing with information has to deal with broadband and interactive potential," warns Andrew Heyward, President of CBS News .

Commoditized content plaguing local broadcasting is highly undesirable in this new emerging world. As I always like to think, "local news" as we know it today is like "town gossip," a subgenre of "local information". There is so much other local information out there currently not provided by local broadcasters, that consumers are forced to go elsewhere, unless broadcasters can break their "if it bleeds, it leads" addiction.

Related Articles:

BWI: Great Example: CBS News.com

DigitalMediaWire's Next Generation TV

The Future of Television Forum

About the Author

Stephen Warley has made a career out of assessing the future direction of television, working at CBS News, CNBC, ThirdAge Media and most recently as General Manager of TVSpy . He completed his MBA at Fordham University with concentrations in media management and finance in 2004. Stephen is no longer writing Next Generation TV for TVSpy, but he continues to write on his Broadcast Web Ideas blog. You can email him at stephenwarley@gmail.com.

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