NATPE: New media platforms bring big opportunities for filmmakers and television producers

As Bill Clinton’s campaign staff said in the ‘90s, “It's the economy, stupid”. The elephant in the room at this year’s NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) television market was the estimated 2,000 participants as compared to the 6,500 record in 2008. Needless to say the surviving distributors were selling to fewer rights buyers from around the world. That was the bad news.

The good news is the emergence of new media platforms and the opportunities that it is creating for independent television producers and filmmakers. That reality was reflected by the fact that 21 of the 56 seminars were digital related. The event was filled with workshops like Formatting Content for Digital Delivery and Online Video Syndication and Advertising: What’s Working. Panels and speakers focused on the creative opportunities inherent in the new multi-platforms.

Exhibit A confirming this trend were the comments during an interview with Michael Eisner, former head of Disney and now CEO of the Tornante Company and Chairman of Vuguru. In keeping with the location of this year’s NATPE, Las Vegas, Eisner’s betting the farm on his belief that in the near future the majority of entertainment will be delivered via the internet. He’s convinced that you’ll download your entertainment by way of your internet-connected television, watch your programs on your internet-connected computer or see them on the small screen of one of your mobile devices. That doesn’t mean that movie theaters will disappear, only that smart producers will begin developing content specifically for the internet and mobile media.

During his presentation, Eisner previewed The Booth at the End, Vuguru’s latest series that will run 150 short-form episodes made on a budget of $250,000. Can you believe that? This is the strategy of a man who at one time spent $1,000,000 per program. What an exciting world for independent producers; this means you can compete with the likes of Michael Eisner. He had a captive audience for Disney’s prime-time slots, but much less leverage with internet and mobile audiences that migrate freely around the internet. Eisner is the first to admit that producers with the best storylines and who capture the most interesting emerging on-screen talent will win in this new environment. He’s not exactly sure how to make money in the new media landscape; but he knows that over time advertisers will migrate to the most popular programming. His guess is that advertising will take the form of three to five second introductory sponsorships, product placement, and ten to fifteen second advertising b-roll in the middle of the programming.

Keith Hindle, CEO, Americas at FremantleMedia Enterprises said advertising agencies are already far more excited about putting their advertising dollars behind web-only video content than they are about new television shows. Hindle said, “For a start, it’s cheaper than television. But more importantly, they and their clients see online content and social media as a critical way of reaching their customers. It’s interesting as it means we now develop more content that isn’t for television than we do for television. We spend a huge amount of effort developing content purely for digital distribution, exploring new syndication models and feeling our way towards making money from it.” Web content is currently a brand-funded business. Hindle said, “Few portals pay license fees in the way television channels do.” The greatest difficulty is measuring who sees online content and where it is being seen.

Along the same theme, David Jenkinson, a leading digital media commentator, said, “Television is a scares resource. The time from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday night is absolutely scarce. When it’s gone, it’s gone forever. So if advertisers want to reach a large number of people they have to compete for a 30-second spot. But if you take that exact piece of content and make it ubiquitously available on the web, there is no temporal restriction, no geographic restriction, and whenever you click you get it. So there is no scarcity whatever. What has happened to the price of that? The problem is how to translate the value of the digital viewer into wealth. There is a really good way to do it on television, but not online.” Yet, advertisers already know that the internet and new media are transforming their business models. They already know they have to ‘trade broadcast dollars for digital pennies’.

Use of social networking was an important theme at NATPE. Chloe Sladden, Director of Media Partnerships for Twitter, suggested producers make better use of social networks. For example, NBC is doing a build-up to the winter Olympics. “They tweet frequently, they showcase what different athletes are doing,” she said, and “The role we need you guys (producers) to play is to curate what matters on Twitter ... It’s to tell stories, to find talent.” She thinks’ Twitter is a way to engage audiences and to augment storytelling.

NATPE plans to change its venue in 2011 from Las Vegas to Fontainebleau Resort on Miami Beach. Rick Feldman, CEO of NATPE, said, “The thing that is most fortunate about the hotel is we will own the environment. Everyone at the hotel for those three days is going to be a television professional. You are not going to be bumping into the porno people, the gun people, the ski people. It will be all NATPE. We say we are about content, commerce and all of that is going to be enhanced by the ability of everyone to be in one place, at one time, under one room. It will make it more convenient.” For more information about NATPE 2011 go to: http://www.natpe.org/natpe/