The Broadcaster Of The Future

With the entry of Netflix, Amazon and Apple into the content provision business, traditional and even satellite broadcasters can be forgiven for looking somwhat uneasily over their shoulders. These intruders are not to be ignored, they are serious players with serious infrastructure and marketing nous behind them.

The business of broadcasting, be it public service or commercial is relatively straightforward. Commission content, broadcast content, listen to audience, start again. This applies whether the broadcaster is in the business of creating original content or buying in existing content. In terms of revenue streams, advertising, syndication, format rights all follow from a successful program. Budgets we hear are shrinking, this is because advertising revenues are shrinking. Furthermore, the diversity of platforms including download and catch up TV militate against the viewer actually watching live TV. Ever wondered why there is so much sport, so many reality shows, so much fake jeopardy in modern broadcast TV? It’s to keep you watching until the next ad break – “who’s been voted off?”, “Will they bake the cake in time?”, “Who’s winning?”

So is traditional broadcasting a total anachronism? Should they just pack up their valves and transmitters and shuffle off into the distance? Well, no. Let’s examine that basic business model for a second and see if it is still relevant. Content still has to be obtained, so we can tick that box. Strike broadcast and substitute the word “Delivery” – more appropriate considering the number of channels and platforms available these days. Listen to the audience? There’s an idea. The traditional broadcaster’s method of retrieving audience feedback is via focus groups and reviews, surely an anachronism in what should now be a global industry. The focus group method takes weeks to deliver any coherent finding. Weeks in which the real audience may be rising or falling. In this day and age we can provide feedback in the form of statistical analysis to the commissioning process even to the program makers much more quickly.

The new content providers are looking at social software as a means of analysing response. Recommendation engines are key to streaming and download providers like Amazon and Netflix. Experiments have even been carried out in the UK with real time twitter feeds being made available to presenters. This I suspect will be a temporary phase – there are much more interesting uses of Twitter than amplifying sentiment into some kind of infernal feedback loop. Social software is also incredibly noisy in that it encourages people to vent. Furthermore, the more enlightened producers are beginning to realise that social software is a good means of promoting content. All of this noise needs to be filtered if meaningful data is to be extracted, but I can’t imagine a broadcaster answering the question “Would you like to know what people are saying about your show?” with a negative. Can you?

Analytics tools nowadays are more than capable of trawling social software sites and converting that unstructured data into something that can be analysed. In fact a company, Trendrr.TV has been set up in the US to provide precisely this function. This stuff is no longer being talked about behind closed doors in the industry – it’s in the public domain now. And its powerful stuff. Imagine the implications of being able to demonstrate that viewing patterns match a profile that says – “This show is going to be a slow burning hit” – and this is where I think analytics will really make a difference. Commissioners need all the help they can get in times like this – the person who is prepared to hang on in there with a series that appears to be bumping along the bottom of the audience ratings is a person with a private income or a death wish! I’d like to see more risks being taken and I think analytics have a part to play in augmenting the creative business of commissioning content. TV was once a medium that entertained, challenged and educated in more or less equal measure. Is that still the case?

The broadcaster of today could be looking at finessing that feedback mechanism between delivery and commission. Get this right, and the switched on broadcaster will be able to accurately predict audience behaviour and therefore advertising potential, will be able to assess the popularity of characters in the shows, study reaction to plotlines and subtly calibrate content accordingly. Internet time, as has been famously observed is a lot quicker than real time. Broadcast time it seems is a lot slower. There’s the gap that traditional broadcasters must fill if they are to fend off the challenge from Silicon Valley.

SOPA – The slippery slope?

The Stop Online Piracy Act SOPA and its senate companion Protect IP Act PIPA are causing all sorts of bother on the internet today with sites such as Wikipaedia closing down in protest.

Superficially, this is about Silicon Valley disrupting the media industry. We’ve seen the effect of downloads on the music industry and the Film and Television industries don’t want any repeat of that scenario thank you very much!

The case of the start up band who have to pay for their rehearsal space, pay to print up CDs and Publicity material, hoping to make at least some money back through sales, only to have their hopes dashed by cynical downloaders purloining their content for free is also well heard. I am a photographer and have found my photographs on Google, adorning sites I’ve never heard of. A magazine recently offered me the princely sum of  £2 for one picture – an improvement on last year when two magazines with high street distribution deals printed photographs of mine for no fee! At first glance, this embattled artist is tempted to agree that SOPA is not a bad thing.

But of course embattled artists are not the only losers, and if any government is passing legislation solely to protect the rights of struggling artists, frankly I’ll eat my hat. There are other players with much more to lose, and this is why there is such a fuss about SOPA.

This debate is about control. Control over the internet. Or to put it crudely, delivery of the internet into the hands of the vested interests providing content through established channels like print, film and CD.

Link sharing sites such as Reddit, Twitter,  StumbleUpon, Digg etc will under the proposed acts be liable for prosecution if they are found to be distributing links to unoriginal material. In effect, this makes them vulnerable to frivolous litigation like never before. Big companies have deep pockets and will have no qualms about bankrupting the pretenders to their throne by forcing lawsuits to be defended.

The sponsorship of government advising think tanks by corporate interests has also been well documented as has the use of lobbyists by various industries to influence government thinking. The extent to which News International influenced successive elections in the UK can only be guessed at, but it is well documented that Rebekah Wade was a regular guest at the homes and offices of successive prime ministers. No coincidence when the Murdoch owned Sun, News of the World and Times all backed the same horse.

The appointment of Murdoch fan Jeremy Hunt to the Ministry of Culture and the subsequent proposal to allow Murdoch’s bid for BSkyB to be waved through could be interpreted as payback for the press support for the Tories before the election.  It was only stopped by furious protests from the public and one newspaper’s, The Guardian, tireless quest to expose the illegal activities taking place in the News of the World under the auspices of …Rebekah Wade. Nobody should remain in any doubt that corporate interests influence and in some cases dictate government policy.

SOPA and its little brother PIPA are merely the instruments by which the corporate interests that control the old media, hope to wrest control of the new media away from Silicon Valley. It should be resisted at all costs, not because we prefer anarchy, but because democracy is founded on freedom of choice and if there is no freedom of information then there is no freedom of choice. I don’t mind sacrificing a few photographs to uphold that principle.

originally published at Electrical Image 18.1.12

Should the BPPA be called to the Leveson Inquiry?

Interesting exchange on Twitter with Edmond Terakopian this morning about the Leveson inquiry and its refusal to engage with the British Press Photographer’s Association. Edmond feels very strongly that the inquiry should engage, I’m not so convinced that the issue that is important to the BPPA is central to the business of the inquiry.

Firstly, I absolutely agree with Edmond and the BPPA that a distinction has to be made between the honest professional news photographer and the opportunistic, semi-legal paparazzi. This is a question of preserving the integrity of a profession. A profession which is under threat in the public perception from the amount of negative coverage attracted by the activities of the paparazzi. News photography is a serious profession and like any other serious profession, the consideration of ethics is a fundamental part of the practice. Many of the great photographs of our time have been taken by news photographers. Not so many by the paparazzi.

Paparazzi are rarely illegal. There are ethical questions around privacy and confusingly, the letter of the law differs depending what country you happen to be in. The hounding of reluctant participants is abhorrent, however we should not forget that many celebrities, including some members of the royal family, actively collude with the press in order to maximise their exposure. There is an argument that says that the only way to stop the paparazzi is for people to stop buying the magazines that feature their work. Interestingly enough there are signs that the public’s appetite for photographs of so called celebrities on the wane. Big Brother’s ratings were a shadow of their former glory, I hear that the circulation of Hello is down on last year.

I do believe that the Leveson inquiry is doing an excellent job of unmasking the culture of illegality that apparently pervades the tabloid press. There are powerful corporate interests with very clever lawyers and a lot of money at stake here. The inquiry cannot afford to lose focus for a second. It is here that my thinking diverges from Edmond’s. I believe the vested interests behind the tabloids would welcome the inclusion of the BPPA in the inquiry because it would shift the focus onto an issue which is non-threatening to them.

Although the testimony of Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller and the McCanns has been highly critical of and raised serious concerns about the antics of the paparazzi, I see this as being of secondary focus to the main job of the inquiry which is surely to establish whether or not there is a culture of illegality in the tabloid press. I believe that the issue of recognition for a serious profession can be given the attention it merits only after the layers of obfuscation put up by the executives and lawyers of News International have been stripped away (for example, James Murdoch’s ludicrous assertion when faced with the irrefutable fact of an email advising him of concerns about the practice of hacking – that he didn’t read it because it was on a Blackberry, at the weekend.)

The confusion in the public mind between professional and paparazzi is doing serious damage to the profession, of that there is no doubt. Some members of the public are also policemen and security guards who may choose to treat a serious professional (or even a serious amateur) like a paparazzi for example. however, I’m concerned that while the attention of the inquiry is focused on the machinations of the business that supports that profession, there is a risk that the inclusion of testimony from the BPPA may distract from the central purpose of the inquiry and that would only help let the perpetrators of these activities and their employers off the hook. My hope is that the Leveson inquiry will call the BPPA in due course. I believe, notwithstanding the concerns I have set out here, that the BPPA’s voice should be heard and in Edward Terakopian they have a practitioner of sufficient stature and influence to ensure that that voice will be heard.

Reference: Edmond Terakopian – http://photothisandthat.co.uk/2011/12/14/leveson-inquiry-says-no-to-the-bppa/

Originally posted on Electrical Image by Chris Wright

Gary Speed

I suppose I’m of an age now where death, if not exactly surrounding me, becomes a little less unexpected. Which doesn’t explain the sense of sadness I felt over the recent death of Amy Winehouse and this weekend’s tragic news about Gary Speed. There was no similarity of course, excepting their celebrity and that is what makes Gary Speed’s passing particularly saddening. An athlete blessed with formidable talent, showing all the signs in his stewardship of the Welsh national side of being able to bring on the talent in others, the recipient of an MBE, he surely had everything to live for.

As a lifelong Leeds United fan I’ve seen Gary Speed play many times as part of what most rate as the best midfield of the nineties. Gordon Strachan, tirelessly and feistily running the right wing, McAllister dictating the play with imperious grace, David Batty wreaking his unique brand of mayhem on any team that had the audacity to attack. Gary Speed was the youngster thrust into the limelight on the left. He had everything. Brilliant in the air, possessed of a ferocious shot and a timely scorer of many wonderful goals he epitomised the modern day footballer. He never hid from adversity on the pitch and seemed to go out of his way to treat fans with generosity and respect. A gentle man in the truest sense.

A debate has broken out in recent days as to the reasons for his suicide. There is speculation, as there always is, that some terrible secret is about to be exposed. I hope that if there is a secret, the gutter press exercise some restraint. Gary Speed deserves better than that. He deserves our respect and his family in this dreadful time must be left alone to come to terms with their loss. The outpouring of grief and the tributes laid at Elland road by the fans are testimony to a man who left his mark in the nicest possible way. For the sake of his memory and of his family’s future, let’s leave it at that.

Electrical Image 2

I’ve had a great time this week building a web site for my photographic adventures – Electrical Image. This was precipitated by 500px falling out with their fulfilment guys, Fotomoto. I figure that if anyone is going to buy a picture through the site, it will be between now and Christmas. I still love the 500px site and will keep adding to it periodically, but for reasons that I write about on the new blog, I think Electrical Image is the way to go. One thing I learned – web building technology has realy moved on apace since I used to to that for a living.

The new site is a self hosted WordPress site using a theme developed by Photocrati, especially for photographers. The site was up and running in a couple of hours, literally, so full marks to all parties. The population of the site will take a little longer, but I’m pleased with the look of it so far and will spend some time tweaking it and adding content over the next couple of weeks.

Primarily, the intent of the new site is to provide a gallery for my photographs, or at least the ones I think are any good! I’ll also be blogging over there (Electrical Image) about a broad range of things that are of interest to photographers, from Kit to promotion, photowalks, events and techniques (assuming I discover any!).

RiP

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

- Steve Jobs

I don’t know why I feel slightly shaken up by this news, but I do. Perhaps in recognition of the fact I’m only a year younger than Steve Jobs and my achievements are but specks in comparison. Perhaps its the realisation that death cheats us all in the end. It only seems like a couple of weeks ago that Steve Jobs stood down as chief executive of Apple and although it was difficult to see him as a man who would enjoy retirement, if anyone deserved some quality time with his family it was surely him.

Whatever you think about the products, Apple is a company that changed the world, and without the focus, determination and vision of Steve Jobs, both Apple and the world would have been poorer places.

image by Jonathan Mak

Build up the Brand…

There’s an awful lot of bollox that gets talked about brands these days. Personal brands, global brands, build your brand, sell your brand. Sits neatly next to the instant gratification culture we seem to be hell bent on creating. I wonder what happened to craft?

In Brighton, the capital city of quirk, brand led ventures tend to lose out to home grown adventures. Quirky little restaurants with massive followings based on providing excellent service and a brilliantly original food beat the out of towners for both value and entertainment. Which is kind of ironic since it’s the “experience” that a brand is all about.

An example. A reasonably well known Pattisserie just opened a branch in Western Road, Hove. I’m anonymising the establishment purely for the sake of the staff, who were charming. Anyway, I decided to check it out for brunch on Sunday. Out of curiosity I trawled their web site and to my horror encountered a load of old guff about “the brand”. As in “Every ***** Café has its own individual style and decor, but all of them have the same continental atmosphere. A trip to ******* is a unique experience.” Unique as in same? Huh?

If you want to find out what’s really important to a company, look on their “Careers” pages. *******, established 1926 is in fact an “Exciting brand expanding across the UK” with a “Passion to develop great people across the business” providing “Fast track career progression” etc etc.

I’d seen enough, but not wanting to seem like a curmudgeon, wandered down anyway. The cakes looked lovely and the staff were very friendly. So far so good. I ordered Eggs Benedict and Coffee. The coffee was delicious. The Eggs Benedict arrived, inexplicably served on Brioche rather than Muffin. Alarmed by the prospect of sugary brioche clashing with the poached eggs and salmon, I queried it with the waitress. The menu it seems is handed down from head office. Part of the unique experience I guess. The eggs were raw on the inside, to the point of being inedible. The staff were mortified and knocked it off the bill without any fuss. On the way out the manageress asked me if everything had been ok for me today…

My point, and I do have one, is that if the service or the product or whatever damn thing you are selling is not good enough, then all the brand savvy in the world isn’t going to make your business successful. This notion that the brand is more valuable than the product is as foolish as the emperor who paraded through the streets stark naked. As a consumer of products, I expect a product to do what it says on the tin ie. work. As a consumer of services I want the service to succeed in delivering. If it doesn’t I will exercise my right to move to another provider. The brand and the service or product line should interlock, the two are stronger than the one. but if I had to choose just one, it would be a product every time.

It seems to me that building a brand, whether it’s personal or professional has to be done on firm foundations. The perception of quality cannot and should not be bought. Ferrari have a history of creating excellent motor cars. Apple a history of innovation and design excellence. These people have spent many years perfecting their craft and building slowly but surely, a brand that really is valuable. In the current economic climate, hype is yesterday’s news.

Sexy Software & the Wordle of Shame

Now I’m pretty tolerant of business language on the whole. Certain americanisms ending in “ize” (or even “isms”!) are mildly irritating, but they get the job done. This week however I came across a phrase that sets a new low. The use of “Sexed Up” in a business context is surely a step too far. I don’t want to even think of the bizarre practices that such a state would entail. In the context of software it’s just plain ridiculous. And please, don’t get me started on the subject of “funky”. Software is not “funky” or “sexy”. These are qualities associated with the hips. James Brown, I’m pretty sure, never alluded to software in his sessions with the JB’s. “Get up offa that thing” was an exhortation that never included the possibility of that “thing” being a computer.

Often the use of what we might euphemistically describe as business “language” seeks to load a fairly obvious set of actions with a pseudo intellectual gravitas. I was unfortunate the other day to endure an hour long call which was contaminated by one individual articulating a desire to be “the person who facilitates the possibility of a dialogue” I’m sorry, but do people actually get paid for this sort of thing? Was the facilitation funky? or just sexed up?

We are in danger of being swamped by this sort of nonsense, If we in the IT industry continue to adopt this trend of seeking to cloak every message in verbiage, we will soon lose sight of the point of the missives we send and receive daily. Worse than that, we will soon stop paying attention. Most of the people I’ve met in the industry have been intelligent, well educated and thoughtful. I might not agree with all of them about everything, but my point is that more than most communities, IT folk are intelligent enough to realise when they are being patronised. The invasion of our technical language is to be resisted. Surely computers should simply “do what it says on the tin”.

Prosperity Without Growth

Could it be that Karl Marx was right? Instinctively, I’ve felt for some time now that capitalism and the associated relentless lust for novelty is basically no better than a pyramid selling scheme, by which I mean that our obsession with economic growth has the effect that any wealth accumulated by an organisation or individual is at the expense of somebody else. Its why I find the banker’s bonuses at one end of the spectrum and footballer’s wages at the other so repulsive.

There is a book I recently discovered called “Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet” by Tim Jackson that explores this idea rather more fully than I have and comes up with a blueprint for an economic plan that is profound and requires a sea change in our thinking. And that’s us, not just the government. Firstly, we have to recognise the benefits that growth has brought, as well as the drawbacks and limitations. Secondly, we should acknowledge that some countries may continue to require economic growth for some time. Thirdly, before allowing our judgement to become clouded by emotional responses to old labels we should acknowledge that both capitalist and communist economies have, in the last decades, focused on economic growth. Finally, we should start allowing ourselves to at least consider that growth is not the answer. Current recession and unemployment is a consequence of this economic system, not a result of not enough GDP growth.

Broadly the plan involves heavy regulation of the banks and more government intervention into the behaviour of corporations and business. It is socialism, but not as we know it. Jackson argues persuasively that if governments adopt these principles then we will sacrifice our consumerist ideals for a chance that our children may yet have a planet to live on that won’t be torn apart by recession, famine and war. I speak as somebody that owned in excess of 1,000 vinyl albums, built up a collection of over 1,000 CD’s and for what? Pity the fool!

Ed Milliband has included this book in his holiday reading – David Cameron packed “Skippy Dies”. But more interesting yet are the facts around the genesis of the book. It came from a report prepared by a quango, The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) was a non-departmental public body responsible for advising the government on sustainable development and set up by the Labour Government in June 2000. The book was first published by the SDC in 2009. It was one of the first Quango’s to be closed down by the Tories.

Electrical Image

OK this is shameless self publicity, but what the hell, its my blog! Finally, I’ve got around to putting a portfolio of my photography up on the web. It can be found at Electrical Image, hosted by the very wonderful 500px.

Should anyone become so enthralled as to wish to purchase any of my work, on postcard, print or some such, then the very best images are all for sale in a variety of formats at the online store.

Buy with no inhibitions – it will make me a very happy man!!