CBC Speech, number 3
Filename: CBC
Word count: 3094
Leading the Way for the Next Generation of Content
Presented by John Lewis, Executive Director, New Media
Good morning.
Walk into any world-famous art gallery and you'll come across wonderful
paintings, sculptures and drawings. You might spend the whole day there,
traveling from room to room and painting to painting. But if you don't know the
background or history of the pieces you're looking at, you might go home at the
end of the day simply saying, "I liked the colour Monet used, or Rodin really
knew how to sculpt."
Now, let's say you decided to go back
the next
day and take a tour with a professional tour guide. This leader might
direct you to the same paintings and sculptures you saw the day before, but
this time you might learn about their history. Or this leader might discuss
reasons for the use of colours or textures. At the end of this second day,
chances are, you will go home really appreciating what you had seen.
Today I hope to be your tour guide while I lead you through my main
topic, "convergence
in mass media" and how the CBC is approaching it. Specifically,
the focus of this presentation is on content and how we hope to develop content
in an interactive broadband environment.
The media we use and consume in our everyday lives is changing faster
than any of us can keep up with it, it seems. No longer are we happy to simply
plunk ourselves down with a book at the end of a long day, as we might have
done a hundred years ago. Now when I come home, I can choose to listen to the
radio, watch TV, talk on the phone, send Email to a friend in Australia or
order tickets by Internet for Death of a Salesman playing in New York. If I really
feel like tuning out, I can even play a video game! And these options are
increasing all the time. We are living in an ever-growing technological
society. In other words, we are becoming more at ease with the technology that
touches us day-to-day.
As a case in point, consider some statistics offered by an
American-based web site called e-land.com. It states that the speed of adoption
for Internet far surpasses any other medium. The adoption rate for radio was
thirty-five years. For television, the adoption rate was thirteen years. For personal
computers, it was sixteen years. And how long for the Internet? Only four
short years.
But it's not simply the media that are changing. The way
that these media are disseminated is changing too.
When I look at this world around me, telephone lines aren't there
solely so I can talk to my friend on the other side of the city. My cable bill
might include an invoice for more than simply access to 63 channels. A
satellite isn't merely something scientists use to gather information. In this
atmosphere of imminent convergence, content will have to be strong, both in the
traditional media and in what we're calling new media if we want to remain
competitive -- if we want to lead the way for the next generation of content.
With that being said, if it seems like we're "madly off in all
directions" that is somewhat true. If there is anything we have learned, it is
that we
do not know for sure what form or forms the provision of content will take
in the future. Our job at the CBC is to be flexible and respond to our audience's
needs and wants. By doing that, we will share stories about Canadians, who we
are and how we see the world in a whole new and effective way.
So here's what I propose to talk about today:
The New Media
Environment
•
As I mentioned a minute ago, the our media environment is changing.
I plan to lead you through some of the indicators we have experienced at the
CBC that suggest there is a need to prepare ourselves for a different future.
The Evolving Capacity
•
We'll also take a quick look at bandwidth, as well as the type of
programming generally associated with its levels.
A New Approach
•
If bandwidth gives us the means to an end, we will need to produce for
multiple platforms, from analog television and radio, to a highly interactive
broadband environment.
Program Examples
•
At the end of this presentation, we will look at some pretty exciting
examples of what CBC has had in the works: Budget 99, Market Place, a French
kid's site called Fd6 (that we're incorporating into the English market) and
Hockey Night in Canada.
So let's begin with a look at the New Media Environment.
Like most people in the media industry, I didn't start out working in new
media. I've been with the CBC for about fifteen years. Needless to say, when I
first walked through the CBC's doors, words like "Internet," "Web site," and
"broadband" were not exactly in common use.
So prior to heading up New Media, I headed up our Business Development
Department. Our projects ranged from buying a television station in New
Brunswick, to launching two specialty services in the U.S. market (fifty
percent owned by the CBC), to creating a pay audio continual music service
called, Galaxie, carried by many cable and satellite services here in Canada.
The nice thing about those services that live in the analog world, was
the relatively accurate predictability of business plan projections. We could
project the number of suppliers. We could project the price. We could even
project who our audience would be.
In the new media world, however, because it's so new, there is a real lack
of certainty when it comes to projections. I don't know about you, but I can
barely keep up with the mergers and acquisitions today, let alone put together
a predictable business plan.
Growing Demand
What we do know is that there is a growing demand for new media.
According to the results of a recent ACNielson Canada survey, almost twice as
many Canadians are using the Net as they were in 1996. Talk about adoption of
media!
But that isn't to say that in 1996 only a few people were logging on.
That year we produced a television drama about Canada's infamous 1950's fighter
aircraft called The Avro Arrow. At the same time, we launched one of our first
web sites. This website, which had a chat line, was dedicated to the show. Over one
hundred and fifty thousand individual Canadians from across the country came
on-line to share their thoughts and aspirations. We even had one of the pilots
turn up.
This desire to participate interactively in a TV-based Canadian event just
blew us away. It was one of the early indicators that we had something
different that would grow to become very popular. We truly felt like we were leading the
way.
Another indication that we were on to something big was during the last
federal election. We had created a website for that event. After that election,
a journalist told us about an interesting thing that happened at the Canadian
embassy in Mexico. This journalist was invited to a evening soiree at the
embassy to watch the election results via satellite television.
Part way through the night, however, they lost their signal. So there
they were with their food and drink in hand, but no information about the
election back home. But one person from the crowd said, "Wait a second, CBC has a Website."
So they pulled their computer out, put it beside the television, and were able
to find out information about specific ridings, as well as the overall results.
Although the embassy eventually got its signal back that night, this
incident showed us that, for a different reason, there is a growing demand for new media.
Then there was the Quebec election. Now being more experienced in predicting the
demand, we anticipated heavy traffic. We set up proxy servers. We had
guaranteed bandwidth. We streamed audio and video according to demand. We
thought we had all bases covered.
What we didn't anticipate was the volume of web-based traffic that
exceeded the ISP capacity. I was with a group of other CBC employees in a
Quebec City hotel room that night. We were checking out our competition in
television, radio and on the Net when I realized we couldn't get into our own
site. So I called up our folks and said, "I've done everything here. Why can't
I get in?" It didn't make sense. We were only at three-quarters capacity.
It was then that we realized the problem wasn't the site itself, but getting
to our destination. It was like a massive traffic jam on the access roads to
the shopping mall -- with the stores only half filled with customers.
So this is another indicator that there is a strong, growing demand. It
also means that we need to respond to the way our audience is accessing our
content.
Demographics
While some people still think of web surfers as young, pocket-protector
clad young men, our research indicates individuals from all age groups are now
Internet users. And while the strongest showing is still in the fifteen to
twenty-four year-old age group, there has been an increase in seniors and women who
regularly log on. There are clear indications that this is not
a passing trend or fad.
Strong
Correlation
There's also a strong correlation between watching television and
accessing the Internet. They are not unrelated activities. One of the TV
related sites that drives the highest traffic is a cooking show called C'est Chaud.
As soon as the on-air chef says he's posted the recipe for the dish he just
prepared, the traffic starts.
Audience Feedback
One of the reasons why were are able to know when traffic heats up
(excuse the pun!) is due to our ability to track user flow. If users stay on
our site only a few seconds and leave, then we know we've screwed up somehow.
If the system is set up right, however, then our audience is more likely to
come and stay awhile. In television or radio, you may find out the next day
what your numbers were, but you don't have the immediate feedback you get from
the Net.
By the way, our users stay an average of ten minutes, compared to the
average of a minute or less.
Conclusion
Obviously, Canadians are using the Internet as a platform to access
content, just as they do in radio, television and print. What is less obvious
is what
Canadians and others are seeking and how they're doing it. It is our job to
discover how best to develop content that is informative, attention grabbing
and still entertaining and turn into the Next Generation of Content.
The Evolving Capacity
Let's move on to the question of "how."
(Narrowband)
•
Right now, our research indicates that most Internet users are accessing
the Internet at speeds of 28.8 Kbps. They're using the Net for basic services
such as booking airline flights, hotels or for simple research. Much of what we
use the Internet for today requires logical left brain thinking.
•
The CBC has eight hundred lines, which means that at any one time, at
most, eight hundred users can access our audio/video content. Of course it's
hard to make any sort of business case from that.
•
Multicasting, however, will allow greater
simultaneous access to content. That promises to be an element that would
change business cases. It would also allow a greater level of content to be
developed in the broadband environment.
(Broadband)
So what is broadband? Quite simply, it's an efficient use of a wide
band of frequencies. That means we are able to pack more information over a
cable so we can offer services only dreamed of before.
Right now we're running about 1 Meg, but will eventually increase that
to six Megs or more. When using six Megs, you can provide full motion video,
more interaction with the audience and have emotional right brain potential.
How close are we to a broadband world? Well, according to research by
Forester, by the year two thousand and two (2002), fifty percent of online
users will be using broadband. Without a doubt, at that time, there will be a
strong enough business case for investing more into the development of
broadband.
A New Approach
We at the CBC have been producing content for an analog radio and
television environment. We've started to produce in a narrowband environment in
the last year and are now thinking about broadband. We need to take a new approach to
content if we are on our way to a very different media environment.
Already our audience is able to exercise choice. If I don't like a
program I'm watching for example, I can click the remote and try something
else. Knowing the audience's desire to exercise choice, websites have a great deal
of selectivity. Personally, I find it difficult to watch television newscasts.
Although their content is good, they are deciding for me which stories I should
watch. I want that choice and I can get it on the Internet. And while I can't
get the quality of audio and video that I would from the television, with a
broadband environment, that will change soon.
Multicasting will bring us a step closer to being able to afford to
produce content for an active, as opposed to passive, audience. Again, this
means that an increase in users will lead the way to a better business plan.
From basic selectivity, we will move towards on-demand interactivity.
What does that mean for content? Well, The Next Generation of Content needs a
new approach.
Let's see how we're preparing for that environment.
Federal Budget 1999
•
What you don't see here is probably the biggest breakthrough. The production
team that developed content for this site was a common team that included
radio, television and new media journalists. So because it was the same group,
we were able to be consistent in the "look and feel" for both the site and the
television program.
•
Both offered the same information at the same time and the site was
mentioned during the radio and television broadcasts.
•
This news site had the second highest traffic to date.
•
Users could find highlights from the budget, background information that
might not be available on television, there was a video of the speech, and they
could even review documents related to it.
•
Yet for all the site's advantages, it still falls short of providing
access to multi-applications on one screen. People are telling us they want
that access. They want to be able to sit in their family room
watching television, but have data surrounding it. They want to watch Paul
Martin speak, but also review documents at the same time.
Market Place
•
Even though we repeat Market Place several times during the week in the
analog world, you either see it or you miss it. And even if you happen to catch
it, the subject matter is such that you may wish to refer to it at a later
date.
•
If we accept that notion, then we must lead the way to the Next
Generation of Content by offering much more than a simple TV program. It, in
effect, becomes a consumer information service. And I think this is where the
environment is headed. Look at any survey result regarding what people are
looking for in Internet, and you'll see the number one reason is always information
gathering. So the audience's expectations of this service will be
very different that their expectations of a TV program. They'll be expecting it
to be comprehensive.
•
What we have now is of good quality and it allows us access to archived
material, but it is not a comprehensive consumer site -- yet. We are considering going in that direction,
but we can't do it alone. We need to join forces with others in the same field.
•
With that in mind, it is conceivable that as we lead the way towards this
Next Generation of Content, the TV program will become only a key promotional element
to the larger, new media service.
Fd6
•
This site is a good example of how we've created a direct relationship between
the audience -- kids in this case -- and six characters from the site. As kids
come onto the site, they register (privacy concerns are addressed), and select
one of the characters as their best friend. This character creates an on-going
relationship with them by sending Email.
•
It's amazing what can be done. In May, Julie Payette will "adopt" the
science character, the blond-haired girl, and take it up into space with her to
conduct an experiment with it. The kids will be able to follow the progress, as
they'll be linked in.
•
So the potential for this kind of interactive program is staggering.
What was also staggering, by the way, was the excellent response we received
from the audience. In its first two weeks, we had sixteen hundred kids register
in the French market.
•
What is also interesting about this project is its impact on television. We are
now looking into turning the concept into an animated television show. So it's
going from Internet to television, and not the other way around.
•
So this is another example of the New Generation of Content. Kids aren't
sitting passively in front of the television, but are having an on-going,
interactive relationship with this medium.
Hockey Night in
Canada
•
This is my last example of how the CBC is tackling new media concepts.
•
This site is much like the one we created for the Federal Budget. Its
content is appropriate for simultaneous transmission with the television
program, as well as appropriate for ongoing reference.
•
While there are ways of simultaneously displaying Internet based content
with the television signal in an analog environment, a fully digitized
environment will mean we will have no choice but to speed up the shift to the New
Generation of Content. As I have mentioned before, while we don't have full real-time
video right now, with broadband just around the corner, eventually we will.
Conclusion
That brings me to the end of my presentation. I hope that after this
tour through issues surrounding new media content, the next time you log onto
our site, you'll look at it a little differently -- and you'll appreciate
it more. Just as I have appreciated the opportunity to speak to you today.
Thank you.