Broadcasters need to find new ways to reach modern audiences, says Cassian in a post which first appeared on Broadcast.
It’s amazing how transformative one tiny piece of technology can be. The touchscreen smartphone has now become the most successful piece of consumer technology since the wristwatch.
More than one in four people on the planet own one. Coupled with the growth in bandwidth – data connections that allow those users to consume everything from Snapchat messages to HD video – it’s clear: we’re long past a world where the BBC (or any broadcaster) could leverage an old-world grip on distribution into a monopoly.
But before we become blinded by a technology tsunami, let’s look at what people most use their smartphones for. Video streaming now accounts for the majority of data used worldwide. Given the chance (and the bandwidth), there is clearly a strong appetite for it.
And that holds true for TV sets as well. Our smart TVs and IP connections turn the proverbial gogglebox into a beast of many inputs. Alongside the PVR and DVD player, we can jack directly into iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime et al.
Nevertheless, long-form television is still the campfire around which we want to gather in our millions every night – in fact, the number of linear broadcast channels is expected to grow over the next five years.
The big questions remain around the industry and the market. If there’s one big shift that the growth of IP distribution brings, it’s the collapse of national borders. With easy access to both a global audience and capital of scale, SVoD players make bets on content at a level that national broadcasters find difficult to match.
Meanwhile, the ad-funded model of YouTube is encroaching from the other end, supporting a mass ecology of low-cost, self-made content.
The challenge for traditional broadcasters is how we move our story beyond the paradigm of transmitters talking to dumb boxes in the living room. Our audiences now want content that is relevant to them. The question is: how do we achieve this?
Cassian Harrison is Channel Editor, BBC Four. He's producing the opening panel session of this year’s RTS Cambridge Convention, which will debate the future of the television industry, on 16 September.
This post first appeared in full on Broadcast.
