[opendtv] Broadcasters Cut Out of Convergence
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:44:53 -0500
Hmmmmm...
Perhaps the ball is starting to move.
At least we are now seeing a major Broadcast publication tell it like it is.
Broadcasters are "forcing" the content conglomerates to bypass them;
as a result they are finally beginning to understand why they are
watching from the sidelines...
Regards
Craig
Broadcasters Cut Out of Convergence
January 19, 2006 12:00am
Source: Broadcasting and Cable
As the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and MacWorld Expo wound down
earlier this month, the takeaway was that the long-hyped
"convergence" between the broadcasting, consumer-electronics and
computer industries had finally become a reality.
Hardware manufacturers at CES demonstrated a range of non-traditional
devices for viewing television, from cellphones to portable video
players to computers with digital-video- recording (DVR) capability.
Internet companies, not setmakers, grabbed headlines with deals,
including Google's plan to sell CBS programming through its new Video
Store.
Over at MacWorld Expo, Apple chief Steve Jobs announced that iTunes
had sold 8 million music videos and TV shows since mid October and
that NBC will sell clips from Saturday Night Live on the online
service.
What is unclear is the role broadcast stations will play in this new
era, particularly in regard to mobile viewing. The mobile devices
touted at CES all have a common thread: They don't rely on broadcast
spectrum. Most of the broadcast networks' new video services aimed at
computers or handheld devices are delivered via the Internet, usually
through a cable company or telco, or over cellphone networks. And
most don't offer stations a cut of the revenue pie.
"I was at CES, looking at these things, and it gives one pause,"
admits Clear Channel Television Chief Technology Officer Mike DeClue.
"The broadcasters are definitely getting squeezed."
CBS SHARES THE WEALTH
NBC and ABC aren't offering affiliates anything from their iTunes
deals, but CBS has taken a different tack, sharing some of the 70%
cut it gets from Google Video Store with the network's affiliates,
according to a person with knowledge of the deal. Google gets the
remaining 30% of revenues from sales of CBS shows at $1.99 each. (CBS
is also sharing revenue with owned-and-operated stations in markets
where it is offering video-on-demand programming through Comcast.)
Lynn Claudy, senior VP of science and technology for the National
Association of Broadcasters, says broadcasters "should be
uncomfortable" with the new focus on small screens and Internet
video. While some stations are providing short news and sports clips
through mobile-phone providers, and companies like Modeo and Qualcomm
are developing systems that deliver live video to cellphones, Claudy
thinks stations need to reach consumers directly. That may require
broadcasting to mobile devices.
"For a broadcaster, the best deal is never going to be giving your
product to someone else to distribute to their customer," says
Claudy. "You want to use your own infrastructure. The future of
broadcasting is more tied to the control of getting that signal to
consumers than getting it to a headend or central office and getting
a check."
That will be a challenge. The U.S.' Advanced Television Systems
Committee (ATSC) digital-television standard was not originally
designed to support mobile reception, which was one of the criticisms
station groups like Sinclair Broadcasting leveled in the late '90s
when they pushed for a switch to the European DVB digital television
standard. The industry is still working to tweak the U.S.' VSB
(Vestigial Sideband) transmission scheme to enable mobile reception,
and a solution is several years away.
STILL A WAY TO GO
"In terms of reaching mobile devices with ATSC digital-television
[DTV] signals, the short answer is, we are not there yet," says ATSC
President Mark Richer. "The challenge is that we have to develop the
solution with a certain level of backwards-compatibility so existing
viewers can still get high-definition TV and other services."
In 2004, ATSC approved a standard called Enhanced-VSB that is
supposed to allow digital reception under weaker signal conditions.
The system allows stations to lower their data rate in exchange for
making the DTV signal easier to receive. But Enhanced-VSB has yet to
be commercially deployed, and ATSC is pushing for further
improvements.
In addition to improvements in receiver technology and video
compression, U.S. broadcasters might need a different transmission
architecture to support mobile DTV applications. Richer says some
markets may have to adopt the European approach of using multiple
small transmitters, all broadcasting on a single frequency, to ensure
handheld reception.
Stations have already tried to make a business of transmitting
content to computers through their digital television spectrum. In
the late '90s, various station groups joined forces behind DTV
"datacasting" concerns like Geocast that promised to deliver content
to PCs, but those efforts disbanded as DTV receiver chips were slow
to make it into PCs.
CAPITOL SHIFTS ITS FOCUS
Capitol Broadcasting is still testing a DTV datacasting service in
Raleigh, N.C., but has shifted its focus to providing content through
cellphones with its News Over Wireless service (see B&C Special
Report, 1/2 issue). "For us, it's not an issue of 'Does digital TV
data broadcasting work?'" says Sam Matheny, general manager of News
Over Wireless. "It absolutely works. It's a matter of getting a
critical mass of devices out there to receive content."
ABC isn't currently involved with any efforts to support datacasting
or other ancillary services through the digital spectrum, says Albert
Cheng, executive VP of digital media for the Disney/ABC Television
Group. Instead, the network is delivering content to the broadband
and mobile-phone platforms. Part of that is technical expediency,
because there is already a large number of PCs and cellphones ready
to receive content. The other reason is the challenge of reaching a
datacasting agreement with more than 200 broadcast affiliates, which
Cheng says is "like running Congress: Everyone has a different agenda.
"We want to do something national," he adds. "[But] we only own 10
stations, so it's quite an effort to corral the different parts of
it."
One encouraging thing to come out of CES for broadcasters was the
introduction of thumb-size DTV receivers that fit into the USB port
of a laptop or PC. Such devices could help promote the delivery of
DTV content to PCs. And as the downloading of Internet video becomes
more popular, DeClue thinks it may overload existing broadband
networks and force content distributors to look for new delivery
channels. Who better to distribute a download of Desperate Housewives
to 500,000 PCs in a market, DeClue asks, than broadcasters?
"There is already an overlaying mechanism that can distribute content
really seamlessly, in an encrypted fashion, in a local market," he
says. "That is DTV."
<<Broadcasting and Cable -- 01/19/06>>
<< Copyright ©2006 Reed Business Information. All Rights Reserved. >>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
