BPN 1138 From txt to vids

One of the last speakers at the MPJC 2008, was Marianne Zwagerman of the Dutch media company Telegraaf Media Group with its flagship, the daily newspaper De Telegraaf. She told the story of how a newspaper company was changing into a media company, crossing from traditional media to a hybrid paper/digital media company. It is one of those company stories of conversion from a traditional medium into a digital medium in search for a digital product portfolio, while making money on the traditional media. De Telegraaf is not a small media company, so it is like changing the course a mid range tanker in a small (language) channel. And it is not just simple to say: from analogue to digital, from paper to bits and bytes, from texts and pictures to sound and video.

D Telegraaf Holding has a vast range of traditional publications: 100+ newspaper titles, 4 radio stations, 100+ puzzles and game titles, 12 magazine titles, 20 events. De Telegraaf was an early bird in the field of digital media; yet the turn-over of the digital media is less than 15 per cent of the 800 million euro turn over of the company. Besides these activities De Telegraaf Holding has a substantial share in SBS television company.

While the traditional media still bring in money, the digital media are working their way up. The activities are brought together in a digital division, which has a turn-over target of 15 per cent this year. De Telegraaf has been on internet for 12 years now. In the meantime the digital range has broadened from a simple extension from the printed newspaper to a pdf version to a special classified ads site, Speurders. But the company has also extended to narrowcasting and its subsidiary LibriumTV takes for example care of the McDonald network, the underground stations, Total gaz stations, buses of a particular company and shopping malls. The advantage for De Telegraaf in this activity is the combination of news and advertisement. .

Reigning the digital department is video in general and mobile video in particular. With the narrowcasting (or out-of-home TV) activities, De Telegraaf got into the video business. Now it operates Dumpert, the Dutch YouTube, but under editorial supervision. Dumpert has 550 uploads a month, 2,5 million visitors and 100 million watched videos.

But De Telegraaf also invested in the shockblog Geenstijl.nl and Geenstijl.tv. The reasoning behind this investment is curious. The newspaper De Telegraaf has always set the tone in the public discussion in The Netherlands. With Geenstijl.nl De Telegraaf shapes the talk of the day, showing that we know what make people tick.

For De Telegraaf there are three principles on their road from text and pics to sound and vids: branded media, hybrid business models and journalistic independence.

Blog Posting Number: 1137

Tags: newspaper, narrowcasting

BPN 1034 Dutch soccer returns home to public broadcast

Dutch public television had something to celebrate last night: it acquired the rights to the premier soccer league. After an outing of three years with the commercial and in the meantime defunct television station Talpa, the premier soccer league has decided for certainty. In the meantime soccer lost 1 million viewers over the past three years and it will get less money for the games than the 35 million euro from the commercial TV station.

The public broadcast station NOS now has the rights to the television summaries on Sunday night and to the radio rights for 20 million euro. The premier league decided to keep the rights of live games to itself. The commercial broadcast companies RTL and SBS had also tendered, but their offers were rejected.

Now everything will return to the old format. On Sunday night 7 pm the tifosi will be in front of the television and watch the summaries without breaks and in the ranking of the competition. Talpa had changed the time, the order of the games and of course interrupted the broadcast with commercials. In the three years of broadcast, soccer lost one million viewers.

As to the rights of the live games, the premier soccer league decided to start exploiting their own channel. There were offers of Liberty Global’s Chello Media (channel Sport1), Tele2, KPN and the consortium Football4all, a consortium of the cable operator Zesko Holding and Canal Digitaal Satellite. Despite the offer of Football4all, the minimum financial warranties of 45 million euro as well as the HD broadcasts and interaction, the offer was rejected. This indicates that that the premier soccer league wants to get more out of their own channel. So far the premier soccer league thinks that it will pick up 70 million euro in the first three years. The aim is to get 600.000 to 700.000 subscribers.

In the months ahead before the start of the premier league in September, a lot of organising will have to be done. A consortium has been set up for this. Endemol has been taken aboard as a strategic partner and the Rabo bank is the financial partner guaranteeing the 70 million euro of the former deal. For the production an open tender will held, which probably will be a fight between Eyeworks and Endemol. Besides the infrastructure for financing and the TV production, the consortium will have to sell the distribution rights of the broadcasts on differnt platforms. So far the IPTV soccer subscription of Tele2 has an audience of 400.000 viewers, among which KPN subscribers; now Tele2 and KPN will be able to negotiate separately. Canal Digitaal satellite channel will bring in viewers. But also Chello’s Sport1 most likely will be an outlet for all the cable operators, unless Zesko starts to open up an outlet of its own.

The premier soccer league has chosen for certainty of the broadcasts of the summaries and the radio rights. It has also decided not to be depended anymore on third parties and has followed the US model of the NBA and other sports organisations by setting up a channel of their own to be distributed by third parties. Given the various existing distribution infrastructures such as IPTV, satellite and cable, it will be able to pick up substantial sums.

As to HD broadcasts of soccer games no statement has been made. The public television companies have decided not to broadcast the coming European Championships in HD. They will experiment with some games but will not broadcast them all in HD. This is a blow for the television shops as they will loose a strong argument for selling HD prepared television sets.

Blog Posting Number: 1034

Tags: IPTV, HD

Cross-channel rights to Dutch soccer premier division

The Dutch soccer world is in a stage of excitement, as the tender to the broadcast rights of the premier division has been closed. For the Dutch soccer team the rights mean revenues, while for the viewer/user it means access to the summaries and games.

The soccer games have become a cross-channel rights circus. Besides the rights to the premier league games of men, the rights are also sold to the games of women. The cross-channel rights concern television and radio over cable, IPTV and mobile. A complicating factor is the formats: previews, live games, summaries and archived games.

The participants in this tender have not been announced, but there were six major candidates for the all over rights. The Dutch public broadcast NOS lost two years ago the summaries to the new broadcast station Talpa/Ten. Versatel, now Tele2 had the rights to the full games and shared the rights amongst others with the telecom incumbent KPN. But after two years the scene has changed dramatically. Talpa/Ten has terminated broadcasting and the rights went to RTL.nl. Versatel hoped to pick up 100.000 IPTV/ADSL clients with the premier league soccer, but this did not work out at all.

Now the potential bidders limited themselves to six candidates: NOS, Tele2, KPN, RTL and SBS. RTL and SBS have not tendered, but a novice surprised everyone: Zesko, a combination of cable operators (Casema, @Home and Multikabel). This conglomerate does not cover the entire country with its cable infrastructure, but to fill some gaps they went into a deal with Canal Digitaal, a satellite distributor of movies, sports and digital channels. It is taken for granted that no foreign media party has turned in a bid for the rights.

The rights have been eagerly fought over the years. When the public broadcast company lost the rights to Talpa, Talpa paid 35 million euro for it. Yet the broadcast station lost at least a half million viewers due to the change in format and the commercials during the broadcasts. This round of bids might top the 100 million euro, which novice Zesko is said to be prepared to pay. Just twenty years ago the rights were worth 1,4 million euro.

The Premier League combination, which is selling the rights, will take its time for a decision. They have had two bad experiences in the past years. The telecom company Versatel/Tele2 wanted to use soccer to draw in new clients and when this did not work it started to sell out its rights to the digital channel of KPN. And the Talpa/Ten transfer of the rights to RTL has not brought the premier league more exposure; in fact due to the change of stations people have lost track of the premier league. So the question for the premier league combination is now, whether they will accept the high bid of the cable operators’ consortium or whether they will cut the package up and offer it to separate companies, who in turn can make their own distribution combines.

From the content point of view this bidding is interesting. We are talking about highly appreciated sports content. There was a day that on Sunday night at 7 o’clock no less than 4 million sat ready on the couch for the summaries; now only 3 million find the proper broadcast station. So why should the price go up, when the number of viewers is going down. On the other hand live games will be able to be viewed with a set-top box or by IPTV subscription. So there is certainty about part of the revenues.

So far soccer content has been a cross-channel commodity for the Premier League combination and the bidders. No cross-media potential has been seen yet in soccer content. The stress of soccer content has been on distribution; only the larger clubs have been able to form a community and have their virtual club house.

Blog Posting Number: 981

Tags: sports, sports content, IPTV

Future of television (1)

I was yesterday in broadcast city NL, Hilversum, for the last iMMovator crossmedia café of 2007. And as could be expected, the theme was about a futuristic theme, not about internet (read Tim Berners-Lee’s Web of People), but about the future of television. It was a real interesting session in which researchers presented their view and in the second part the television producers plus a publisher were interrogated. After the pause Erwin Blom, head digital media with the VPRO broadcast station, gave his farewell speech as he is leaving the VPRO and starting up a company with another internettelevision pioneer, Wessel de Valk. The two blocks delivered a complete contradiction about the future of television. One researcher indicated that there was still growth for tradition television in terms of consumer time and ad spending. Another researcher predicted a consolidation with a few big broadcast/publishing companies remaining by 2015.

At least over one thing people agreed: things go slower than predicted. I still remember that I gave a presentation on broadcast and new media in 1996, talking about program extension with CD-ROM and teletex overlays. By 2002 the Dutch broadcast industry, public and commercial, finally took internet seriously. Now internet has become part and parcel of the industry, at least to some extent.

In passing the researchers were on a demystification tour. Internet television will be most attractive; on the basis of the present figures television will remain attractive. In the Netherlands 17 per cent of the population says to have a Blu-Ray player, while in reality only 1 per cent of Blu-Ray players have been sold. No less than 80 per cent of the television population looks at TV content, while only less than 20 per cent looks also television on computer.

The producers were also quick to dispel myths about the influence of television. Yes they were expanding into in internet and only since the arrival of YouTube, the television companies are taking internet serious. Video is a medium they can understand and commercialise. For example, the producer of SBS, a subsidiary of ProSieben, is preparing the launch of a European competitor to YouTube; it will launch the user generated content video service in February 2008. Important to the broadcast stations are becoming the movie libraries; with movies they can start video on demand on the cable, but also on internet. The television stations will also develop their own content to a larger extent; the television broadcast will be thus be amplified timeshift internet material or the traditional television broadcast will serve as window to the live program on internet. Two trends they foresee is that the 25 years old generation has no television in the living room and secondly that social networks become the new media channels for promotion and even distribution, as the fan clubs can be found there.

Every one agreed that programs are becoming brands and a broadcast station is the sum of all the brands. A broadcasting station is becoming the central unifying factor, on the one hand packaging the brand products for broadcast on television, internet, mobile, events, prints and for merchandising and promoting the brands among the viewing audience, which is fragmented in television viewers, internet and mobile users and events’ participants.

Blog Posting Number: 941

Tags: television

Broadcast and CRM

It was an interesting session yesterday at the iMMovator Crossmedia Café in broadcast city Hilversum (the Netherlands). The theme of the meeting was Broadcast and Web 2.0, which can be roughly translated to how broadcast companies can use CRM. Jochem de Gruyter (see photograph) of SBS Broadcast company introduced the subject looking from the Direct Marketing side to a broadcast company. His two lines of thought were: Why should a media company use CRM; if it will use CRM, what are the strategy and tactics.

He started out with the observation that consumer look less at TV. Yet for a commercial broadcast company it is important to get the advertisement slots filled. A commercial broadcast station will attempt to fill 20 percent or 12 minutes in hour with commercials. In practice the advertisement slots will be filled. The profit for a station will not come out of advertisement slots, but from crossmedia activities, certainly if the station wants to compete with YouTube and Joost. So the commercial broadcast companies will have to move from mass to individual client.

This move implies a lot for an organisation which has always been oriented on mass markets. At once they have to identify the individual client, keep them happy and expand the client value. This is something else than just broadcasting a programme and have a receptionist picking up the complaints.

The strategy is twofold:
- better exploitation of existing and new content, making the company less dependent on content from third parties as well;
- have a better knowledge of the viewer/user/client; get a database with profiles.

In practice this means setting up a database for the profiles of the individual viewer/user/client and opening up other communication channels than the existing programs, phone-in and sms actions. These days there are many more communications channels than before. Yet many of them have a high irritation degree. Funny enough an unsolicited e-mail has an equal irritation degree to TV ads. Yet e-mail is a serious medium as a starting point for communication with the individual viewer/user/client, when matters of interest are communicated.

Jochem demonstrated this with examples. He showed how SBS was producing more content of its own. The material not used for television could be used on internet or for mobile. But he also showed how he informs the individuals about related television programs, products and actions. In this way a program has a longer life than the one time plus a repeat it used to have. With the database it is also possible to do advertisement campaigns through other channels. In that way a broadcast can be extended across other media as well as the 12 minutes for commercials.

Blog Posting Number: 910

Tags: CRM, broadcast

Dutch TV station Tien, aka Talpa, exit

While Philips was celebrating its 25th anniversary of the Compact Disc, the Dutch television station Tien (in English Ten), a.k.a. Talpa, of John de Mol had its own exit party. After two years and four days the Dutch television station of John de Mol stopped. The spoils will be picked up by RTL Netherlands which has started RTL8 as an outlet for some shows now. RTL8 will aim as women as a segment. RTL also acquired the 32 million euro flag ship of the premier soccer league in the Netherlands.

You can ask the question what went wrong and go into a lot of nifty details. More interesting is the question whether Tien had an effect on the Dutch broadcasting world, which is a world of ‘more of the same’. When SBS has a skating show, RTL will have a variation on the theme. When RTL has Idols, SBS will have Who wanna be a popstar. So two years ago John de Mol promised to shake up the broadcasting world with new formats. And he tried. The news did not just have anchor persons, but they had a group of VIPs around the table, discussing the news of the day. This format was given up fast and Tien returned to the anchormen. Also soccer was going to be presented differently. People did not like it and at seven o’clock on Sunday night, when there should have been a prime time audience of 2,5 million viewers only 1,5 million soccer tifosi showed up. But John de Mol tried to bring new programs and he did. So the originator of the reality show Big Brother thought up the Golden Cage, where reality and fiction are intermingled; the winner keeps the mansion which is inhabited during the show and has a chance on the jack pot of 1 million euro. A change in advertising format had been promised by Tien; the station would work together with the advertiser. In this discipline things changed. And Tien used internet better than the public broadcast station

When Tien was announced as Talpa, the public as well as the commercial television and radio stations got a fright. They were sure going to loose audience shares to such a star studded station. The public stations went through a painful rescheduling and horizontal scheduling, while the commercial ones started to buy new formats. But after a year it was all over for Tien; yet Tien had shaken up the public and commercial stations. Now RTL is the wise guy on the block, having the soccer premier league and the start programs of Tien.

What is John de Mol going to do? He will not sit back and view the world. In fact he is moving his attention from the Dutch broadcast world to the world scene with Endemol. This company was acquired from Telefónica for 2.63 billion euro in May by a three-way consortium comprising Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset, the company co-founder John de Mol through his Cyrte Investments vehicle, and Goldman Sachs. John de Mol will be involved in the operations of the company. One of his first actions was to remove the Telefónica chairman Elías Rodriguez-Viña Cancio as fast as he could, undoing the parachuting of a Spanish CEO in 2002. Instead he put in his veteran governor Aat Schouwenaars. Having put his man in place, John de Mol will have to start looking for money coffers, as the take-over is falling victim to the global credit crunch. The syndication by the banks Goldman Sachs, ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Lehman and Merrill Lynch has been postponed as debt investors refused to take part in high-risk buyouts. The consortium has also almost all of the remaining 25 per cent of shares; the owners of the remaining shares which total less than 1 percent of the shares. Endemol will soon leave the Dutch stock exchange.

Blog Posting Number: 842

Tags: broadcast

History of Tien (2)

The Dutch TV station Tien has a history of two years.

- Beginning of May 2004, John de Mol leaves the tv production company Endemol, a subsidiary of the Spanish telecom Telefonica after a row about the appointment of a Spanish governor.

- De Mol starts talking to the owner of the childrens’ channel Nickelodeon about filling the evening hours. On 9 October 2004 the soccer game Macedonia vs Netherlands is broadcasted on Nickelodeon. With the game De Mol drew attention to his new TV station.

- On November 2004 Talpa (Spanish for mole) is awarded a broadcast license by the Commission for the Media.

- In December John de Mol is awarded the summary rights for the premiere soccer league.

- In the first part of 2005 more and more names of starts, supposed to start to work for De Mol, are leaked to the press. His sister Linda de Mol is followed by local Dutch starts. The name Tien (Ten) for the stations is used but has to disappear as the station SBS claims the name rightfully. The name Talpa is used for the time being.

- On August 13, 2005 Talpa broadcasts its first evening filling program.

- In October Talpa announces to aim at is more important target group of 20 till 49 years old and wants a market share of 10 percent.

- From the beginning the viewing statistics were dramatically bad, except for soccer programs, a soap and a local stars series. Especially the early evening programs scored badly and were several moved around. The soccer programs scored okay, but the format was different from the public broadcast, which broadcasted the soccer games in a different format formerly.

- From October 2006 the name Talpa changes into Tien (Ten), after an agreement was reached with SBS Netherlands, which had the rights to the name Tien. Talpa Media Holding, the holding company of De Mol, insists that a second station with arise along station Tien.

- Towards the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 station Tien is often in the news, but negatively. The intended torment show The Golden Cage evoked a lot of commotion. It looks like this was a major mistake in the marketing of the station.

- In the second quarter of 2007 rumours have it that station Tien will not be part of the new TV season programming, despite better viewing statistics due to the European Soccer Championships under 21 and Deal or No Deal.

- On June 26 John de Mol announces the end of the Dutch TV station Tien. Programs of the station will be integrated into the programming of RTL Netherlands. This company will start a new station RTL8 next to RTL4, 5 and 7.

Blog Posting Number: 799

Tags: television

Dutch newspapers on the move

There is a mixed bag of news in the Dutch newspaper World coming from various newspaper companies: Telegraaf Media Group, PCM (remember the postings Never a dull….), FD Media Group and Royal Wegener.

PCM
At last PCM has announced its intention to merge with NDC/VBK. Both companie will undertake a study of four months. The question is whether the two companies can merge. If so, it would be come a company with national and regional newspapers, with educational book companies as well as general book companies. Together the two companies would turn over 1 billion euro. The study will be directed by Mr Groenewegen CFO of PCM and Jan Roos chairman of NDC/VBK.

Comment: The two companies have the same structure. Both companies are overseen by foundations, looking after their ideal objectives. Together the companies would be the largest Dutch publishing company. However the question is whether the Dutch monopoly watchdog would allow the combination or ask the company to abandon parts of it.

Royal Wegener
This regional newspaper company, ready to be acquired by the UK company Mecom, has shown optimism about the display ad and classified ad market. The chairman of the board Jan Houwert reported the joint venture newspaper AD with PCM to be profitable now; Wegener has a 37 percent share in this venture. He also mentioned the new major shareholder Mecom, which holds 24 percent in Wegener. Mecom and Wegener hold talks, but these have not been conclusive yet. Mecom has shown interest in the acquiring Royal Wegener.

Comment: When Wegener is optimistic, be assured that things are looking up for the newspaper industry in The Netherlands, as the company is at the end of the national ad feeder line.

FD
The Dutch financial daily FD plans to launch a new online business publication next week together with the TV station RTL Nederland and the Norwegian publisher Schibsted. The name of the newspaper will be Z24. The online business newspaper will have an editorial staff of 12 people. The new publication, of which there will be no printed counterpart, aims at the target group of well educated men and women between 25 and 40 years old. The target group differs from its parent publication Het Financieele Dagblad that aims at business men and women. The co-operation of RTL Nederland, which has the business TV station RTLZ has not been formally confirmed yet. The co-operation with the Norwegian Schibsted is not a surprise as the FD group works already together with this newspaper in a business news consortium; besides one of the owners of FD, Mr Sijthoff, has a financial interest in the Norwegian publishing group.

Comment: This is an interesting project. FD Media Group has followed a cross-media strategy over the past years and has merged with Business News Radio into a successful media conglomerate. Now the media group is addressing a complete new target group with a daily online publication. Although the business newspaper has been in several consortia, usually in order to pick up ads, the media group now also goes into an editorial collaboration with a progressive Norwegian newspaper. FD Media Group has worked before with FD on an incidental basis, but now it looks like RTL Nederland is seeking co-operation with a newspaper and business radio group.

DAG PCM
PCM’s free daily DAG has appointed Bob Witman as the-editor-in-chief. He will be heading a 45 strong editorial staff and is responsible for all editorial information regardless of its platform (print, internet, mobile and narrowcasting. He was one of the strategists of the internet policy of the daily newspaper De Volkskrant. He is an experienced journalist and has experience with cross-media. Joris van Heukelom has been appointed as the director cross-media. He will be charged with the creative development and cross-media of DAG, the brand DAG and the creation of strategic partnerships with advertisers. DAG Media is a joint venture of PCM and KPN. (For those who understand have a look at the Adfolive movie).

Telegraaf
The newspaper company Telegraaf Media Group (TMG) and the broadcasting company SBS, in which TMG holds 20 percent of shares, will launch a multimedia platform for consumer news under the name of Wuz (an acronym for What u say, but than in Dutch) in the middle of June. Internet will be the core of the joint venture. Content mailed to the editorial staff can come online, in print, on mobile websites and in the SBS TV news programme. The target group is said to cover 2,2 million people online and 1,2 million TV viewers.

Comment: The national consumer newspapers are getting nervous again as PCM is preparing the launch of its free newspaper DAG. In order to distinguish themselves the newspaper are adding the epitheton ornans cross-media. It all started with the paid daily NRC.next, which started to use the adjective. PCM used the word when collaboration with the incumbent telco KPN was announced. Now also TMG is rushing to the new land of cross-media with Wuz.
It will be interesting to see how the concept of cross-media is going to realised with distinction. From the sound of the different press releases cross-media is no more than multi-channel. So far it sounds like there is no day-parting, no scaling of screens and no usage of the strong points of the various media. It will be interesting to return to this issue with half a year and research the cross-media concept as given shape by the various editorial staffs as well as the effects on the target audiences.

Blog Posting Number: 736

Tags: newspapers, cross-media