Does the Internet Replace Other Media?
InterMedia has been studying the Internet for over 5 years in its surveys for international
broadcasters.
Virtually all broadcasters now think of themselves as "multi-media" providers. They are seeking the correct balance of Internet usage for their stations.
InterMedia’s studies focus on how international broadcasters can best tailor their programming and messages to be most effective in rapidly changing environments.
We will present information both quantitative and qualitative. The presentation will provide an overview of the projected growth of the Internet and look at specific cases in South Eastern Europe and the Balkans using data from InterMedia Surveys conduced in Spring 2002.
We will show how television and radio use has been impacted so far and what the future holds for broadcasters in their relationship with the net.
Dennis ISRAEL (US) -- INTERMEDIA
Clearing Rights for Internet Video-on-Demand
With the advent of digital technologies new market opportunities have arisen for broadcasters. In particular, Internet-based Video-on-Demand platforms that provide easy and inexpensive public access to a vast array of audiovisual content that otherwise would not enter the usual distribution channels (cinema theatres, home video and TV).
Paramount to making use of these business opportunities is the clearing of rights for online exhibition. Unlike the US situation, in Europe broadcasters do not directly acquire the exploitation rights for online distribution of their self-produced programmes. Instead, these rights lie with the persons involved in the making of the work. It is only with the permission of these people that such works can be offered online.
The allocation of rights does not present any problem for newly produced works, since online rights are normally included in contractual arrangements between the producer and all rightholders involved.
The problem arises however, when it comes to clearing online rights for older works where often rightholders, or their heirs, are not traceable, or traceable only by unreasonable administrative effort.
Francisco Javier CABRERA (FR) -- European Audiovisual Observatory
How Broadband will deliver local programmes worldwide (TV over IP solutions)
We all know that there is today in Europe enough available bandwidth, trough modern telecommunication networks. They are presently underemployed. But this will, sooner or later, force the outcome of value added services based on broadband communication.
The deployment of long distance networks and numerical infrastructures is now largely complete. This will encourage, from now on, telecoms operators to offer services where broadband Internet access and IP based TV or entertainment will converge. The TV (or video) on IP is an streaming application which covers several major applications of the economic environment. They can be implemented on IP networks either interurban and/or city such as ADSL, VDSL, fibre, LMDS and wireless LANs. The TV over IP will be used in particular in the following applications:
- TV at home (instead of the satellite TV or cable)
- TV ex schedule or virtual personal video tape recorder (PVR)
- Interactive TV, plays, publicity, tele commerce
- TV at the office (learning, videoconference)
- Interactive advertising TV in public areas, etc...
The deployment of broadband telecoms networks ran up these last times against the lack of applications needing this broadband. This, in its turn, had as consequences a weak return on investment, plunging the majority of the operators into serious economic difficulties. However the viability of the broadband businesses model does find back its attraction with the introduction of TV over IP and all its associated applications.
Television distribution channels imposes a certain size to the producers/broadcasters but, apart from very rare exceptions, none of them has broad and wide diffusion areas. The channels were very expensive to set up and, following the example of traditional telephone network, constitute a dispersed and confined, very specialized network. On the opposite, Internet, by its world wide presence and its very broad connectivity shows the way of convergence. Eventually, the Internet operators will overcome the resistance of the operators of the historical networks.
TV over IP and all its procession of innovating applications will then become the only mean of distribution.
Jacques GAMBONI (CH) -- Fibre Lac
Contractual Clauses and Exploitation by VOD, NVOD and Interactive TV
Even if broadcasters acquired comprehensive exploitation rights, the digital rights for the exploitation by Video-on-Demand, Near-Video-on-Demand or Interactive TV may still belong to producers and authors of films. The MITIL Law Centre, organised by Gérald Bigle and Arnold Vahrenwald, offers a discussion of the hot topics in contract law.
There are different issues for discussion:
First: Old contracts - did they cover new electronic exploitation rights?
- Did the grant of TV rights include digital rights?
- Buy-outs: are they effective on the basis of the copyright laws of European states?
- Do "All Media Clauses" and "Future Technology Clauses" include electronic exploitation rights?
- Which remuneration is payable and to whom, and how should it be calculated - in particular residuals?
Second: Which clauses and terms can be used to cover appropriately new types of exploitation like VOD, NVOD and Interactive TV?
- How should digital exploitation rights be defined to avoid problems with traditional licensing schemes (territoriality, audience, number of broadcasts, calculation of remuneration)?
- Choice of law clauses opting for the most convenient legal system.
- Arbitration clauses and the avoidance of the jurisprudence by the courts.
- Safeguarding the interests of the parties and the use of software for digital exploitation.
Contracts on the digital exploitation of films have to be drafted carefully, taking into account that the jurisprudence is only developing and that there are few guiding cases. The discussion of the hot topics shall contribute to provide broadcasters with more (legal) security for the negotiation of digital rights in audiovisual content.
Gérald BIGLE (FR) -- CentreBar Association
Arnold VAHRENWALD (DE) -- CentreBar Association
Create & Manage Scheduling, NVOD and VOD services over IP
IP is one of the new networks to deliver audio, video and television. But how can we generate revenues ? How complex is it ? Which services ? Which video format ? Which set-top boxes ?
With the experience of NeoCast, we will try to address these points and to explain the state of the art in IP television.
Laurent POTESTA (CH) -- NeoCast
German Broadcasters face the same challenges The situation of regional broadcasters and thematic channels in Germany.
When having a look at the situation of regional and thematic TV channels, it appears evident that the mistakes lay in the detail. In my presentation, I will concentrate on the situation in Germany with its particularity of the publicly funded TV channels; at the same time, I'm aware that only certain aspects of our situation also apply to other European countries.
The regional chain of the publicly funded television more or less fulfils its programme assignment: they broadcast local information and minority programmes, but needn't worry about acceptance among the audience or quota, as they are financed by reception fees. However, they represent a problem for private regional broadcasters, as they reduce their vitally necessary audience quota. Therefore, the launching of the private regional TV-project with the highest audience potential in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen was postponed until next year.
Among the existing three private regional channels, only the Bavarian project stands on safe grounds, which is less due to the project itself, than to the fact that the governing political party (CSU) supports it for prestige reasons - sometimes with methods beyond the law, as a number of scandals have proved in the past.
Berlin and Hamburg struggle on two fronts: On the one hand, there are the publicly funded channels that stand for the serious news coverage, on the other hand, topics that bring high quotas, such as sex, crime and neighbourhood-tragedies, are covered by the interregional and national private channels.
As for theme channels, their only chance are at the moment the packages of digital suppliers, where weather-, home shopping-, travel-channels etc. find a modest success. It is most questionable if all the news channels will survive. Only NTV has so far been able to conquer an acceptable market share. The music channels have lately suffered from collapsing audience quotas, a phenomenon that merits further observation.
The situation is even more dramatic in the internet. Among consumers the opinion is clearly that internet is and has to stay a medium free of charge. The only content that can actually be sold over the internet is sex. It is therefore impossible to refinance internet services via charges.
Klaus LINKE (DE) -- Moderne Zeiten Verlags
Does local pluralism still mean something ?
Population of most cities and towns in the industrialised countries includes a growing number of inhabitants foreign to the local cultural patterns such as languages, religious practices, food habits, education systems, gender relationships and political institutions. In a country like Switzerland, some fifty years ago, these differences were mainly the result of the Swiss citizens’ migration between rural and urban areas, between cantons and neighbouring countries such as Italy, whose languages and religious beliefs were certainly different from those locally applied, but they were generally accepted as part of the Swiss multicultural heritage. Nowadays, immigrants are coming from more and more distant regions, whose cultural patterns have very often nothing in common with the local ones, making integration a most difficult process.
In this context, local radios and television channels, more than any other media, have a crucial role to play in order to make easier the newcomers’ integration into the local community and facilitate their acceptance by the natives. Whatever could be their legal status as public or private entities, local radio and television channels have a public broadcasting service mission to fulfil : they have to inform and comment on the various aspects of the daily life of its people and reflect the range of their opinions, concern and aspirations. They also mirror the cultural diversity of all its inhabitants, natives and immigrants, thus contributing to help the communities to know each other better, to learn about their respective traditions and customs, to explain to the newcomers the functioning of the political institutions and their civic responsibilities. In so doing local radio and television represent a unique tool to foster an harmonious multicultural coexistence between the various communities. They are the expression of the political, social, and cultural pluralism of the local community.
Alain MODOUX (CH)