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Australian Publishers Online: Still No Clue on the User-Generated Content Front?

Sydney.
The final Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress panel for today shifts our focus from broadcasting to (print as well as online) publishing. Hugh Martin, General Manager of APN Online, opens the discussion by noting the long history of developing online counterparts to print newspapers (and the slightly shorter history of doing the same for magazines). He points to the recent announcement that the Christian Science Monitor is soon to cease its print version, moving entirely to an online newspaper, while magazine publisher Condé Nast has a very hard time working out how to make money online.

Content Partnership Strategies for Australian Media Organisations

Sydney.
We're getting close to the end of this first day at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress; one more speaker and a panel to go. We begin with a repeat performance by Tony McGinn, CEO of MCM Entertainment, who was already on a panel this morning; he opens by noting that we are in a period of significant change, even without the added impact of the global financial crisis. The first fully educated Internet generation is about to take the wheel, and will drive radical change over the next few years.

The Australian Media Industry: Further Observations

Sydney.
Here at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress, we now move on to another media industry panel, involving a number of the speakers of the day as well as Jason Paris from TV New Zealand. Some 12-18 months ago, New Zealand launched a FreeView service similar to what's soon coming to Australia, and this service has now achieved 10% penetration; TVNZ also launched an online catch-up service similar to the ABC's iView which now generates 300,000 hours of viewing per month, was the first broadcaster in Australasia to launch a YouTube channel, operated a YouTube live debate between the political leaders in the recent elections, partnered with Bebo, and offered four simultaneous live channels covering the recent Olympics online in addition to the TV channels, generating 360,000 viewing hours. It also offered a choice between ad-supported and for-pay online options, and ad-supported content won hands down (at a ratio of 70,000:1).

Mobile Media Advertising Opportunities in Australia

Sydney.
Up next here at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress is Michael Smith, Corporate and Consumer Group Marketing Director at Optus, who shifts our focus to mobile media. He notes that some 75% of the Optus Zoo mobile portal is user-generated - "stuff that's interesting to me". Users want to access content on their own terms, and so Optus is connecting with a number of media industry partners - this is different from the completely integrated Telstra Bigpond approach, or the handset-as-portal approach of the iPhone, for example.

New Business Models for Social Media and Hyperlocal Media in Australia

Sydney.
We're now starting the post-lunch session here at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress. The speaker is Tony Surtees, CEO of Australian regional broadcaster Prime's digital arm iPrime. He begins by noting that complacency is the enemy of innovation - and for that reason, starting new businesses during times of recession is actually very appropriate, as this added pressure means that complacency goes away.

By way of a very funny video from Bring the Love Back, Tony suggests that consumers have changed, but advertisers haven't. Time investment and advertising spend on different media no longer match - online advertising significantly lags behind take-up, while newspaper advertising remains significantly above circulation figures. Additionally, of course, people increasingly multitask (especially also between TV and online). Each time new media are introduced, we begin consuming them, but we consume them in multiple, different ways.

MTV's Approach to the Digital Mesh

Sydney.
The next speaker here at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress is Gerry Gouy, Commercial Director for International Digital Media at MTV Networks. He begins by saying that today, there is no digital media any more - there is only media. Convergence is here - not for everyone, but for many.

Big media companies have been guilty of siloing media into old and new - so why the tipping point now? Gerry says that there has been a rapid shift of TV online, ubiquitous high-speed broadband (well, outside of Australia, at least...), a drop in broadcast media ad sales, and a simultaneous growth in online advertising (and here especially search and video ads).

TVs after Television

Sydney.
We're in the next session at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress now, with Robbee Minicola from Hybrid Television Services. She begins with a story about her grandmother sharing her recipes (giving away IP) - but the question remains: can you actually follow the recipes the way she can? The same is true in the television field, and Robbee says that 'TV is the new black'.

Watching television, users are mostly in a passive, lean-back state - focussed, relaxed, and easy to intrigue. This is critical to how content and services are delivered through the TV. But is a TV a TV any more? Today, TVs can be used to play games, download content, browse the Internet - when before, TV was drama, news, and sport, today its potential is virtually unlimited. Broadcasters must stop working with a narrowcast view of TV.

The Australian Media Industry: A View from the Top

Sydney.
I've travelled south for the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress, at which I'll speak tomorrow. Arriving this morning I've missed the opening keynote, but I'll try and blog as much as I can of the rest of the proceedings.

So, we start with a panel by Australia media industry leaders. Michael Anderson from Austereo begins by talking about the launch of digital radio, which he sees as an enhancement to what radio does - no longer something significantly new as it's taken so long to launch in Australia, but a useful addition nonetheless. He suggests that in the US Internet radio has not yet been a success - it is nigh anemic, and largely a failure, he says. The industry there is trying to grow through cost-cutting. The UK isn't much better, and Australia is in fact ahead of most other nations in terms of its digital radio market.

Big Boston Bombshell

Henry Jenkins is leaving MIT, to take up a position at the University of Southern California. Whoa - that's big news, and something of a seismic shift; Henry has been such a major driver of media and cultural studies (especially also in the new media area) in the US, and he's one of a handful of people who have made MIT a very strong player in this field. I wrote my Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage book while I was a visiting scholar with the Comparative Media Studies group there, and I'm very grateful for Henry's support and collegiality during and after that time (and in his announcement post, he's even found the time to include our Creative Industries Faculty at QUT as one of a select number of leading research institutions in the field) - so I wish him all the best at the new place; at least the flight over to Australia has now become a good deal shorter for him... Commiserations to the folks at MIT - it will be interesting to see whom they find to fill Henry's shoes!

CFP: ANZCA2009 Digital and Social Media Stream (Brisbane, 8-10 July 2009)

Today I've started sending out calls for submissions to the 2009 conference of the Australia/New Zealand Communication Association, which will take place in Brisbane on 8-10 July 2009. We are calling for paper submissions for the conference overall, and for the Digital and Social Media stream in particular. For more information about the conference, a full list of all conference streams, and to submit your papers, please see the conference Website at http://www.anzca09.org/.

Digital and Social Media conference stream

ANZCA09: Communication, Creativity and Global Citizenship

8-10 July 2009
QUT Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane, Australia
Stream convenors: Axel Bruns, Creative Industries Faculty, QUT / Teresa Rizzo, AFTRS

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