Classic Jack: Fox' Kevin Reilly, Sony's Steve Mosko, Disney's Albert Cheng and Joost's Yvette Alberdingk-Thijm on Economics of the New Television Marketplace

Reilly also advised that he will be focusing on creating a quotbridgequot between the creative community and digital distribution opportunities and will begin experimenting with new content development models quotTalent has no bridge to new distribution platforms and they want in on themquot he said quotWe need to use our human resources and focus to build a bridge for the creative communityquotSpeaking on a panel moderated by Jack Myers with Sony Pictures Television president Steve Mosko DisneyABC EVP Digital Albert Cheng and Joost EVP Content and Acquisitions Yvette AlberdingkThijm Reilly said quotcontent has become depersonalized and abstracted You need to start with the creative seed that comes from talent spark and things we can39t quantify With all these ancillaries and business modelsamp8230 and as everyone is staring at them waiting for the kettle to boilamp8230 you can suffocate the creativity that sometimes leads to enormous businesses I honestly believe some of the writers were feeling that as part of the underlying emotion of the writers strike that all these opportunities were going on with their creativityquot Lead sponsor of the JackMyers event was Teletrax and cosponsors were FreeWheel and Vibrant Media The event video will be available next week at JackMyerscomMosko agreed saying the company39s online Crackle unit offers an opportunity to explore prosumer interests and identify creative talent He also pointed to the Adam Sandler Gay Robot pilot originally developed for Comedy Central that was repackaged into short clips and has been a hit on MySpace and other sites Cheng added quotthe Internet is an open platform and the barriers that existed for talented people to get into Hollywood are now gone It39s up to us to learn how to search for themquotAlberdingkThijm added the Internet lowers the risk of content investment as studios quotput content online and learn what is successful internationallyquot She highlighted the online series Meth Minute from Next New Networks and Dog Dating as creative onlineonly series quotThere is an enormous amount of untapped talent that normally wouldn39t have made it through the barriersquot she saidJack Myers Joost39s Yvette AlberdingkThijm Disney39s Albert Cheng Sony39s Steve Mosko and Fox39 Kevin ReillyAt the JackMyers event and in separate interviews with JackMyers Media Business Report the executives acknowledged the writers strike provided a much needed quotpausequot for the business although they stressed the economic and personal costs were difficult Reilly suggested quotthe pilot system has gotten over cooked Business models were designed in a three network marketplace with networks having an 80 percent share of market There is a contraction in the marketplace that will not come backquotReilly suggested Fox39 15week schedule is built for the future quotIt was not originally designed that way but now it39s increasingly more difficult to finance a 20week schedule in a universe where the audience does not accept repeats on the network We need to speak a new digital language and I feel the pain on a daily basis of trying to integrate with new mediaquotCheng pointed to third party research showing that quotTV network sites have become the primary destinations for TV longform contentquot While he acknowledged there is room for aggregators like Joost and YouTube is very strong for short form content he believes TV network sites will continue to be quotthe goto places for network content For the first timequot he said quotwe have the ability to determine why people are using certain devices We are learning why and when they go to websites Our learnings will contribute to understanding what the best models will be in the futurequot AlberdingkThijm explained quotJoost is a next generation platform for social entertainment and the company is exploring emotional triggers for people to build around video contentquot The goal she said is to quotmake sure there is the ability for audiences to create community around contentquotDisney39s primary focus is on monetization and Cheng is placing less emphasis on distribution he says quotWe are trying to hit a metric based on revenueperviewinghourperpersonquot he advised quotThe opportunity is to get more people to watch our shows If we can monetize each viewer at equal or more than we are generating on broadcast by being more efficient in ad delivery more targeted and offering more engagement then we can finally get to better economics than broadcastonlyquot quotIt39s all about targetabilityquot agreed AlberdingkThijm quotThe more you know your consumer the better People want to watch free video and don39t mind the advertising if it is specific and relevantquotABC has developed interactive ad pods that are proving to deliver high audience recall positive attribution to brands and improved engagement scores Cheng announced quotBased on the research the online audience is incremental so while we have a long way to go the economics we are driving to are good for usquot Cheng also argued quotin order to get consumers more engaged you need better creative in advertisingamp8230 more interactivity The world of display advertising is low value and we prefer not to have banner ads on our sites Relevancy is really important we need to deliver advertising viewers really want to see Andquot he added quotwe hope there will be fewer commercial breaks so people will enjoy the story telling and appreciate the sponsorquotSony39s Steve Mosko and Fox39 Kevin ReillyThe primary digital agenda at Fox is to feed content to Hulu the online joint venture between NBC and Fox and to develop experiments to use the web as a development farm team But Reilly stressed Hulu and other distribution venues ultimately depend on the network39s ability to launch good product quotWe are seeing a fair amount of product on the network where our studio partners are saying this is a great business for them but we39re looking at a rating that might not be such a great business for us We are still measured by ratings and who is winning the night It39s no longer a one size fits all businessquot Reilly stressed quotIt used to be a fairly standardized business Standardized licensing fee standardized deficit structure standardized syndication structure Now all bets are off We are focused on what we have to do to nurture programs and make them profitable for us We have to remain strong in our core business and remain vigilant in experimentation I don39t think anyone has the answer the modelquotSony39s Mosko agreed quotWe depend on the backend for our profits We have to get shows far enough along where we can get to the backend money We39ll do everything we can to support the networksquot

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Classic Jack: Fox' Kevin Reilly, Sony's Steve Mosko, Disney's Albert Cheng and Joost's Yvette Alberdingk-Thijm on Economics of the New Television Marketplace

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