Is social the future of broadcast?
Recently the Department for Culture, Media & Sport held a consultation on the creation of a “Public Service Broadcasting Contestable Fund” you can read the consultation document here.
Karen Bradley the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport stated in her foreword
“As viewers increasingly adopt new ways of accessing content, it is vital that the concept of public service broadcasting continues to evolve so that public service content is available on the new platforms and devices that continue to emerge”.
Currently the National Assembly for Wales Culture, Welsh Language and Communications committee is conducting a consultation in to the future of the welsh language public service broadcaster S4C. The aim of this is to gather evidence in advance of the DCMS’s independent review in to the future of S4C which will be happening later this year, 2017.
The five prime areas of under consideration are Funding, Remit, Accountability, Relationship with the BBC and prominence in EPG’s, again the full details are available here.
So when we discuss “Broadcast” what exactly do we mean? The dictionary definition is as follows
So how has “Broadcast” changed?
I grew up as a child in the 70’s who with access to 3 TV channels, viewing was a live experience, if you hadn’t watched it you’d missed it. Repeats were the fore runner of todays catch up. In 1982 we sat as a family around the TV set as an exciting new dawn emerged, the launch of a 4th channel, in Wales it was S4C, over the border Channel 4. S4C carried some C4 content, Brookside was broadcast a day later in Wales on S4C, probably the first example of time shifting TV content in the UK.
Around the same time the VCR was making an impact, in 1982 10% of households had one, by 1985 this had risen to 30%, by the end of the 80’s they were common place. Sky crashed in on the scene in the 90’s, but it wasn’t until the 2000’s that it established itself as a real alternative to the traditional 4, BBC, ITV, C4 and Channel 5 that appeared in 1997.
Fast forward to today and the landscape has changed completely, technology, particularly internet speeds, has allowed new services and business models to disrupt the current broadcast landscape. Its incredible to think that you only have to go back a decade or so to a pre YouTube/Smart Phone/Netflix/Apple TV era.
Social medias recent growth has been driven in the main by visual media, in 2014 Facebook was delivering 1 billion daily video views, by 2015 this had increased an incredible 800% to 8 billion daily views. During this time, under my direction, S4C ramped up its social video sharing by utilising the Grabyo video distribution platform. During August 2016 S4C received 700,000 video views online, by December this figure had more than trebled to 2,200,000 views.
So what is all this telling us? Broadcast has changed, more so in the last 3 years than in the preceding 30. Report after report is confirming that audiences are not only consuming content in different ways but that the actual content is changing.
We are still being told by broadcasters that the majority of TV viewing is live viewing of traditional scheduled content, no doubt based in part on reports commissioned by the TV advertising sector. But is this really the case? And even if it is aren’t we missing an actual massive point?
Audiences are moving, the currency of broadcast TV just doesn’t hold the same value anymore. Look at the most recent OFCOM study in to the media habits of young people, published in November 2016, for the first time ever they spent more time online than watching “TV” and the “TV” they were watching was being cannibalised by UGC via platforms like YouTube.
I have first hand experience of this in my own home, my two daughters aged 8 and 4 enjoy watching TV, but the content they watch 99% of the time is being delivered to the TV via Netflix, Amazon and increasingly YouTube as the Minecraft bug takes hold. Yes some of this content originated via traditional broadcast but and increasing amount of their favourite shows and content are coming from non traditional broadcasters, Netflix originated content and UGC via YouTube.
I find myself that I watch the majority of S4C content today on Facebook, I’m one of the 2,200,000 views in December but not someone who would register in an “overnight” - the favoured currency of the broadcaster. I’m engaging with S4C content on a daily basis, more so than when I worked for them.
We need to value the currency of viewing beyond the broadcasters traditional window of the linear schedule in this social space, we need to stop obsessing about the need “to drive audiences from one platform to another”. Let them watch what they want to watch on whatever platform they prefer, monetise around that content based on the platform. If traditional broadcast TV dies, something else, more relevant will take its place. This it what happens in all walks of life, just look at how Uber, Airbnb and Tesla are disrupting their relevant sectors, and look at how Netflix and Amazon are doing so in the current “broadcast” space.
Yes people are still watching TV’s in their living rooms, but the source of the content they are viewing is increasingly coming via the internet.
With so many consultations on the go and in the pipeline it is vital that we look at the reality of how broadcast is actually defined today and more importantly how will it be defined in 3, 5 and 10 years time. A focus on the traditional broadcast landscape today is akin to spending countless hours looking at the regulation of petrol and diesel engine vehicles when in 5 years time we’ll all be driving electric ones.
There is a real danger of us ending up looking in the wrong places and making decisions which will already be out of date when enacted. The reviews of S4C offer a real opportunity for innovation and change, there is a real need to ensure that Welsh language content remains relevant and accessible. In 1982 the setting up of S4C as a TV channel was the right thing to do, but in 2017 do you think that is what would be proposed today? Which is why many, including myself, thought BBC Scotlands plan to launch a new linear channel north of the English border odd, and out of chime with current developments in the “broadcast” space.
We have a lot to learn from Netflix, YouTube and Amazon, content portals accessible across a numbers of devices, from ones in the palm of your hand on a bus to the 40+ inch screens that now dominate our living rooms. Spaces that make content discovery a pleasure and suggest content based on your own viewing and on the recommendations of your social community.
The age of linear content and the EPG aren’t over, yet, but a new and exciting era for content creation and distribution is upon us. As these develop the need to look at new business models become ever more apparent. How do we fund content for Facebook and YouTube? How do we ensure that the rights for new content allow it to be available for digital platforms for longer, as the audience expects and demands today, how do we commercialise these new content spaces?
Embrace the change and enjoy the change but most of all be part of the change.
