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Unified Systems Key to Broadcast Success in New Digital Age

By Dave Cole

The move from analog to digital, from broadband to IPTV, is rapidly transforming the marketplace in which broadcasters compete. New business models are evolving, using IPTV and VOD. As broadcasters grapple with these changes, they must find creative ways to maintain marketshare and evolve with the times, in order to ensure their future financial health and survival.

No longer can broadcasters rely on management software that’s made up of separate systems of macros, spreadsheets, importers, exporters and updaters, or individual departmental applications and outdated analog concepts. The broadcast world has grown too complex for that.

Rather, the key to prosperity in the new Digital TV age, is unification. Broadcasters must look to consolidate their current broadcast management systems into a strong unified foundation upon which new distribution and revenue models can be tested and implemented. In this new age, what broadcasters need most is flexibility, power and security, and experience shows a unified broadcast management system delivers on all three.

Local Content
At the local level, for example, a unified system can be a savior. One need not look further than Apple’s new product to route IPTV to TV screen – enabling users to download network programs and view them on their large screen TVs – to realize the power of competition for a local broadcaster. To ensure their relevance, local television stations must secure exclusive programming, such as local news, weather, and sports, then make their offering available via IPTV to the new distribution channels. Ensuring the station brand is present across all new media, the station must also enable viewers to download the local content and programming from its website as VOD. It is through a unified broadcast management system that broadcasters have the flexibility to effectively manage such changes to their business model.

New Distribution
Distribution of digital TV also poses a challenge to broadcasters, with television programming now accessible over the Internet – providing the option of live viewing, downloading for immediate viewing (Video on Demand), or downloading for later, or offline, viewing – and commercials often skipped. As a result, it’s imperative that broadcasters implement new ways of generating revenues via Internet distribution, to offset over-the-air income. By making programming available via various media, and providing options to viewers who might not have had a chance to watch a program available on only one particular medium, broadcasters can restore viewer levels. Using a unified system, broadcasters have a solid foundation upon which to test the feasibility of having either ad-supported content, a pay-per-view model or a hybrid, through the new media.

New Revenue
A flexible unified system also enables testing with respect to revenue levels. Digital assets – HD, digital cinema, digital signage, IPTV, Web video, and mobile video – are a gold mine as a result of their multiple distribution options, each with potentially more than one revenue model. As viewers are confronted by myriad choices, broadcasters must make it easier for them to navigate through these offerings and find what they want to watch by providing them with easy-to-use interfaces.

The emergence of revenue-sharing models with affiliates, for example, enables broadcasters to provide a full slate of programming to their markets while simultaneously increasing revenues. Agreements by program suppliers are already in place that allow stations to get a portion of the extra revenues generated on other platforms, such as VOD and mobile phones, for up to a year after the station airs a program. This provides broadcasters with an opportunity to test new content distribution models with the affiliates. With a unified management system, viewing can be tracked to determine how much revenue comes from VOD and how much from the station. It can determine what the proper revenue mix should be, and if the amount of reimbursement from VOD downloads is correct.

With affiliate revenue-sharing, many primetime shows are now available for download on a variety of platforms – from network and affiliate sites, to program specific sites, to websites like MySpace and iTunes. Current VOD download sites, such as iTunes, exist because it’s otherwise difficult for viewers to navigate the web to find the shows they want to watch. As soon as consumers have the tools – or VCR-like controls – to easily find, buy, download, and watch the programs they want, then VOD intermediaries will no longer be needed, and a large revenue opportunity will be unleashed for broadcasters. If a viewer pays $1.99 for a show, for example, this translates into significantly more revenue than that viewer would generate in advertising, based on selling on a cost per thousand.

To adapt to new business models as they evolve and maximize revenues, broadcasters need a foundation in place that provides flexibility. Whether revenues come from subscriptions, pay-per-view, VOD, advertising, or a combination of sources, a unified system ensures that broadcasters’ traffic and billing modules are highly adaptable to new ways of doing business.

A unified approach across platforms (broadband, IPTV, and mobile) can also save costs in both technology and people. As media standards evolve, broadcasters will be able to store a single file that can be optimized and sent to any digital platform, from mobile devices to large screen TVs. They will also be able to ensure that Digital Rights Management (DRM) is implemented as content is transferred to various devices, enabling different revenue models. A unified system can track revenues from all the different streams, and make it easier for broadcasters to maintain a consistent brand image and enhance the viewer experience.

The Unified Foundation
The key to a unified system is consolidation. Broadcasters benefit by consolidating their existing system applications and databases into an efficient platform from which they can expand to new distribution models. The result is more efficient implementation of procedures and security, streamlined performance, reduced maintenance, and consumption of fewer resources. With consolidation, many triggers, stored procedures, SQL statements and other associated ‘wiring’, can be eliminated as well.

Consolidation also results in significant cost-savings – a critical factor when realigning from old revenue models to new sources of revenues. This applies to repurposing digital assets as well, where revenue can be made from each of the new distribution channels: cell phones, pod casts, high definition, standard definition, and Internet. Failure to repurpose may lead to declining revenues, with television broadcast advertising now being split over a wide range of distribution and delivery channels.

With a unified foundation comes better reporting, and therefore, more efficient management. Since all the data is available on the consolidated database, easy-to-use report writers can be employed to quickly produce reports based on common data structures. Long-running exports and imports can be eliminated, since a unified system has no need to transfer data among its component applications.

A unified system also reduces the storage of sensitive information on various departmental databases that often employ products such as Excel or Access. By moving the data onto a cost-effective unified system, security is improved and easier to manage, operations become more efficient, and a powerful knowledge base becomes available that can be used to produce better forecasts and enable real-time strategic and tactical decision making.

There’s no doubt that, for a broadcaster to succeed in today’s world, this consolidation is required. A unified broadcast management system provides a solid foundation for growth and sustainability like no other technology.