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Content is King [DigitalProductionME.com]
[September 15, 2014]

Content is King [DigitalProductionME.com]


(DigitalProductionME.com Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) "IBC has always been about content creation, management and delivery," explains IBC sales director Darren Whitehead. "IBC Content Everywhere is for everyone who is involved in or needs to know more about the creation, management, delivery and monetisation of digital-TV and video based content over IP-based networks or multi-media content consumption on mobile, handheld or tablet devices." The European trade organisation, which holds its annual event in Amsterdam, is about to take a bold step into new territory. IBC Content Everywhere is a spin-off event for the broadcast industry aimed at capturing more of the pure-play entrants to professional video in IT, internet and telecoms.



Whitehead continues: "What we see in Europe is an ongoing convergence between IT, broadcast and telco industries. When we look at the traditional key markets in North America and Europe we understand that these companies are serviced by trade events (including IBC) but when you look around at the rest of world then convergence is a wave that hasn't yet crashed ashore. We launched the IBC Content Everywhere brand to deliver an event that focuses on that convergence." [[banner]] IBC can still be perceived as a broadcast show among giants like Deutsch Telekom, Verizon or Amazon Web Services who may not consider it as the place to spend their exhibition dollars. Yet IBC CE, which formerly corralled web and IPTV companies in a space called Connected World, has helped IBC attract a range of new companies from the IT and telco sector.

Some 120 of them are supporting IBC Content Everywhere Europe with diamond sponsor Intel, with the inaugural event debuting alongside and across IBC2014 this month.


MENA is hardly virgin territory, with several established trade events like Cabsat (March) and the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in November with which IBC initially clashed before shifting to the spring. Whitehead says the focus of IBC CE will be much more on thought leadership. IBC plans to collaborate with event organisations rather than compete with them.

While the strategy prepares the ground for the industry's switch to IP and IT, in some senses it also paves the way for IBC to transition too, away from broadcast hardware and toward software and mobility.

Companies like Nvidia, Piksel and Harmonic rather than the Sony's and Grass Valley's of the world - which do not yet have a range of IP connected devices - are more likely to support IBC CE at this stage.

The broadcast equipment industry continues to reverberate with the wave of merger and acquisitions which has seen Grass Valley and Miranda swallowed up by Belden, Dalet add AmberFin, Quantel acquire Snell, and Vislink buy Pebble Beach among many other deals in the past eighteen months. Many of these transactions were driven the need to leapfrog the time and cost of R&D by buying-in expertise in video processing and IP.

"Broadcasters are looking at a fundamental change in the way that many of their traditional customers are consuming media," says Paul Turner, VP, enterprise product management, Telestream. "It is no longer true that media delivery is dominated by OTA/Cable/Satellite delivery. In order to remain relevant to their viewers, they must adapt to the new world of media consumption via IP.

"To do that, they really need to understand the consumption trends of the customers, and to be very aware of the technology that will enable them to engage with those customers in a way that protects the value of their media properties (i.e. channels), and allows them to monetise their media over both traditional and emerging delivery channels in the most cost effective manner. One of the simplest ways to gain that technical knowledge is via attendance at trade events aimed specifically at that market segment." Article continued on next page...

[[page-break]] IBC CEO Mike Crimp agrees. "There is shakeout underway, as the spate of high-profile mergers from earlier this year indicates, but consolidation in some respects is simply a sign of a maturing industry and increasingly commoditised technology.

"In five years or so, viewers will expect content everywhere and be able to watch what they want when they want on what they want," he continues. "They will want the experience to be seamless, painless, and genuinely transmedia. As an industry we have to supply that. I think you will also start seeing more pronounced influences from different regions, both in terms of the way that technology is used and deployed and in the content too.

"A global audience consuming content sourced from a free and global marketplace will fundamentally change the established patterns of commissioning and consumption in the industry." [[banner]] Mobile ad growth According to Deloitte which is helping IBC to put together the MENA event, out of all platforms' ad spend, mobile advertising has been the fastest growing segment in the past couple of years, experiencing triple digit growth in the US. Out of all mobile advertising segments, mobile video advertising is the fastest growing segment, ahead of banners and search.

Telestream sees significant growth in the MENA region in the use of User Generated Content in the sports, and particularly, news. "Access to 'on the spot' footage is of great value in breaking event coverage, and allows news organisations to differentiate themselves from their competition," says Turner. "In addition, we see strong trends in MENA towards consumption of news coverage via mobile devices. This is a logical evolution - people want to consume news content as it happens, rather than wait to be in a location where a traditional 'first screen' display device is available." The three day event 20-22 January, taking place at the Madinat Jumeirah, features the use of nearfield communication (NFC) technology more commonly found in digital wallets. Every delegate and exhibitor will receive a device with individual access to an online portal, with the aim being to facilitate a speedier, faster (and less paper-heavy) means of exchanging contacts and key information and maintaining access to that information 365 days a year.

It's certainly a step beyond printed, pinned name badges and IBC reckons it is the only organisation making use of the tech on such a scale. A trial in 2013 of 1000 devices has been ramped to 10,000 in Amsterdam with expectations of around 5000 attending the MENA event.

Already signed are local business sponsors including ASBU (Arab States Broadcasting Union), Dubai Media City, Emirates, NBC, CPI, with several other major names pending. From overseas, the global brands of Quantel, Aspera, Irdeto, Ericsson, Vimond Cisco and Imagine Communications have all committed.

Why Dubai? Equipment trade body the IABM is lining up a pavilion to attract those of its members with a smaller budget to town.

IBC sized up host venues across the region, alighting on Dubai because of its media heritage and its four-hour fly time to other cities. IBC CE MENA is embracing Pakistan and India within its catchment. It is talking with TATA Communications and other large central Asian players but none has signed as yet.

The programme will follow a similar suit to the one earmarked for Amsterdam. Expect editorially-led panel discussions and sponsored demonstrations and presentations on big data, the cloud, second screens, spectrum and LTE.

Article continued on next page...

[[page-break]] There will specifically be a closer look at the impact of the Qatar World Cup, a keynote from Imagine CEO Charlie Vogt and a session led by beINsports, the joint venture of Cisco and Al Jazeera.The initiative is designed to export the IBC brand to other corners of the world and to extend it 365-days from a single annual hit. Following Dubai, a Latin American show in Sao Paulo is being lined up (though not confirmed) with south east Asia on the radar.

MENA in figures by IBC It may be enlightening for regional insiders to see how IBC is marketing the potency of MENA. The organisation points to the rise in mobile video as being particularly acute locally.

[[banner]] "The growth in mobile video advertising is a threat and an opportunity for traditional broadcasters," says Emmanuel Durou, TMT Director for Deloitte Middle East.

"While, in the middle east, FTA channels and radio broadcasters experience low single digit growth, they need to start tapping into this high growth segments before pure play OTT players gain a significant position in the market (e.g. Pandora launching in the Middle-East and grabbing the lionshare of mobile ad spend on radio)." There are 300 million views on Youtube on a daily basis in the Middle East, Deloitte points out, which makes it the second biggest Youtube video consumer, after the US.

Saudi Arabia alone enjoys the highest daily consumption of Youtube videos per capita (seven daily views) in the world.

A large proportion of the video playbacks actually happens over smartphones supported by high penetration of smartphones in the region (UAE is in the top 10 of the highest smartphone penetration in the world).

"Content producers in the region have adapted quickly to the mobile video trend and a number of start-ups have started developing 'bite size' videos addressing different audiences (e.g. political satires with Kharabeesh, comedy with UTURN and Lumink, cooking tutorial with Zaytouneh etc.)," notes Durou. "An increasing number of these content producers are actually Saudi based." In parallel traditional broadcasters have developed second screen propositions to capture dual video screening including OSN Canal Play or eLife ipad app.

"The next step for the region is to actually tap in the monetisation potential of mobile advertising – it remains a small portion of digital spend (compared to desktop) and even more so when compared to traditional media ad spend," says Durou.

IBC Content Everywhere The three day event 20-22 January taking place at the Madinat Jumeirah features the use of nearfield communication (NFC) technology more commonly found in digital wallets. Every delegate and exhibitor will receive a device with individual access to an online portal, with the aim being to facilitate a speedier, faster (and less paper-heavy) means of exchanging contacts and key information and maintaining access to that information 365 days a year.

(c) 2014 ITP Business Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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