Broadcast Engineers has an article For broadcasters, the name of the game is efficiency which really comes as no surprise:
Finding new and better ways of improving staff productivity and support new and existing distribution channels is key for broadcasters looking to successfully navigate the ever changing competitive landscape and remain relevant in today’s multichannel universe.
I don’t think that will come as any surprise to anyone working in, or near, the industry. The most common interpretation of efficiency is to simply reduce budget and force efficiency. The article reflects many of my own thoughts, and why my business interests are focused on improving efficiency using metadata to take the boring parts out. Ultimately efficiencies will be required as the audiences for individual shows are substantially reduced from audiences of 20 years ago.
Worse for the broadcasters is that:
Jeremy Bancroft, a Director at UK-based Media Asset Capital, a media specialist and technology consultancy, said, “No longer are viewers loyal to channels, but to programs or specific consumer brands. Broadcasters that do not offer easy and accessible content discovery and consumption via online platforms will lose out in the demographic shift that is happening right now with the use of smartphones and tablets.â€
Embrace the new tools, or ultimately get ready for unemployment.
5 replies on “Broadcasters are focused on efficiency”
RT @philiphodgetts: Broadcasters are focused on efficiency: Efficiency and new markets. Who’d have thought. http://t.co/Y30ryHi8
Hi Philip! your main point is good, I’m in total agreement…but I just about did a spit take when Jeremy Bancroft was quoted as saying “No longer are viewers loyal to channels, but to programs or specific consumer brands”. What weasel words. How much did he get paid to come up with that one?
That statement, if ever true to the extent he implies, has certainly not been true in the US for 20 or 30 years. The internet only accelerated that.
Just to be clear (around the double negatives): I don’t think viewers have been loyal to anything but the programs and brands they like for 20 to 30 years in the US. Nobody goes around saying (or even thinking) “I only watch ABC” (for example) and never has. That’s why I spit out my diet dr. pepper laughing. It wasn’t true in 1985 and it’s certainly not true in 2013.
I was more focused on the “but to programs” rather than the specific “consumer brands” although I read that to mean brands that were programs.
The older demographic were more channel loyal. These days I couldn’t tell you watch channel programs are broadcast on.
I am only loyal to the programs I watch, not the networks that produce them.