The business of online marketing and distribution
Stephanie Bohn of Warners US was open-minded and realistic. Of all the majors, they seem to be the most engaged with day-and-date releasing and distribution on multiple platforms.

Her partner, Andrew Bohn (Fluent US) told us that VOD revenue for Gomorrah matched theatrical and in the case of Flawless, VOD sales were 7m against theatrical at 1.2m. Great to see actual figures. He also referenced a pre-theatrical online release for John Woo's Red Cliffs from Mark Cuban's Magnolia Films. This and the other variants of day-and-date strategies are intended to concentrate the marketing spend. Makes sense.

MediaWave has requested a detailed interview with Stephanie Bohn for the next edition.

By contrast, I was less impressed by what I heard from local distributors.

Tania Chambers (Screen NSW) did her best to probe the distributors in her session about alternatives to theatrical distribution, leading off with an excellent summary of the options for online distribution. The responses from the Australian distributors suggested that this is not high on their to-do list right now. Happy to be told otherwise!

Tania asked "what role can government play to assist distributors?" This produced a curiously defensive response from the panel.

Here's my take on what government can do.
- Create an inter-agency consortium to plan for online distribution (see my article The Australia Channel)
- Ensure that films with any agency money in them come with conditions attached for online distribution.
- Invest in findability strategies for Australian content. The interface for the content cloud is going to look something like Google.

If government doesn't get involved, we may see the Warners of the world dominate the online space in the way they dominate theatrical.

TV and its Hybrids

Brian Walsh (Head of Television, Foxtel) extolled the virtues of their IQ2 PVR, which features smarts such as a recommendation engine. When quizzed on whether this box could morph into the ubiquitous Media Centre, with Internet access, he was less clear.

I see this as a key play for any content/hardware combo. TiVo's local variant, Hybrid TV, being developed in association with Seven, appears better set up to be "the one box that does everything". Walsh confirmed that time-shifted content is not rated at present, stating that this would happen early next year. At last!

Content on Foxtel's download-to-own platform is determined by what rights they can acquire from existing suppliers. Doesn't seem to be much scope here for Aus producers to monetise existing content.

In contrast, Matt Campbell from SBS, painted a more encouraging picture for their download to own platform, due sometime soonish. He seemed quite open to the idea of a producer's back catalogue finding place to make money on SBS's site. He acknowledged that the NBN will fundamentally change the way we do business.

Robert Hutchinson of ABC online had a good news story about the short form series Beached Az, which boasts 100,000 viewers per month, plus strong revenues from merchandising. ABC online hopes to build on this kind of success with the new online animated series for older demographic in 2010, revenues to be supported by an iPhone game.

Branded Content, Social Media Marketing

Ben Liebmann of Fremantle, cautions that big dollars are not around for original online content, but suggested that small revenue streams are there and shouldn't be ignored.

The virtues of social media campaigns to build awareness before, during and after production were comprehensively surveyed in a session led by Martin Walsh, producer of the documentary The Battle of Long Tan. He revealed that his doco is intended to build awareness for a feature film on the same topic. He referenced a recent live stream from the set of The Reef as an interesting strategy.

In one of the many branded entertainment sessions, Kelly Chapman of KCDC, gave us a sneak preview of a Screen Australia supported Web project, based around the book Wrapping It Up , which tells you how to wrap up someone's affairs when they die.
Interesting for two reasons: it gives us an idea of what may be funded under the Innovation strand and suggests that such projects may have to come with strong monetisation strategies attached.
The pre-release version of Wrapping It Up contained links to suppliers of goods and services you could need when organising a funeral and wrapping up someone's estate. I couldn't see a coffin supplier tab.

Observations - what this means to you.

Most of the successful Social Media campaigns (Dark Knight, Sex in the City) are built on huge fan bases. Australia doesn't have this fan culture. Can this kind of campaign work for our audiences, and if not, what will?

In the morning plenary on day three, Tony Ginnane , who had earlier identified piracy and the digital economy as threats to the Australian industry, asked Ruth Harley for her five year vision for Screen Australia. She made no mention of the NBN and its implications. Later that same day, Stephen Conroy stated that the NBN would bring new business models for content creators, it would be a "game changer" and a "huge opportunity" for the Australian industry.

I didn't get to see everything, but if there was one thing missing, it was a single vision of how the online distribution landscape could look in five years. Yes, there were many powerpoints with a myriad representations of current and future platforms, but no-one was bold enough to unify them into a simple picture with the NBN at the core and pathways fanning out to paying audiences.

Any takers?