MEDIA FUTURES - Changing Screens, Changing Content, Changing Relationships with Audiences.

Discussion paper – prepared by Sue Maslin, March 2010

Our media futures are being shaped right now. Shaped by tectonic forces – cultural, political and financial – giving rise to the new media technologies and the platforms upon which they are delivered. As screen producers, we are engaging already with profound changes in screens, content and relationships with audiences or user groups.

In April 2009, Stephen Conroy (Minister of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) announced the single biggest national building infrastructure project in Australia’s history – the $43 Billion National Broadband Network. Fibre to the home, schools and workplaces delivering broadband download speeds between 10 to a 100 times faster than those we currently experience. This will be rolled out over the next 8 years but will be fully operational by 2013, the year that analog television is finally switched off. The NBN will be the turning point and underpin our all our media futures and make no mistake, there are policy decisions and business decisions being made right now which will carve out the way in which we engage with that future.

This paper aims to look at how we creatives - the story-tellers and content producers - fit into this new world.

Amongst all the hype surrounding the NBN, it is important to listen closely to the language. It is usually about the technology, infrastructure, capacity building, operational platforms, aggregation, monetization of the internet and service delivery. The NBN roll out is often compared to the building of the Snowy Mountain Scheme, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the national rail gauge….at times you could be forgiven for thinking it was a gigantic plumbing project, such is the hyperbole around the broadband pipe. Yet there is very little discussion about what will be filling these unlimited ‘pipes’ of the future. The word content comes up repeatedly, but what does it actually mean?

It would appear that ‘content’ can mean ANY information or experience delivered via the new portals of the future. It certainly does not imply that it is material resulting from creative authoring or editing. The great irony is that content used to be defined as ‘that which is contained within limits’, ‘the capacity of the thing’, whether it be a book or a bucket. Of course, content is anything but contained in the new on-line universe.

Content is fiercely debated territory at the moment. Rupert Murdoch thinks he can aggregate old media into new delivery platforms and charge for content. He and many others are furious that the tax payer funded ABC have taken a leadership role in setting the media futures agenda. The ABC has a real market advantage because of its $800 million annual funding, it’s extensive capacity to capture content and because of the high level of authority this information has. Audiences, by and large, trust information supplied by the ABC. In an overcrowded on-line world, where information is undifferentiated in terms of quality, this ‘authority’ is extremely valuable. It is in fact a very powerful brand. Not surprisingly, the ABC is taking a key role in setting the future agenda for delivery of content in Australia.

But let’s look at how the ABC sees its role. The recently completed ABC Innovation promotional show reel spruiks their message to Federal MP’s and played at a ABC Staff Leadership Conference. It underpins an aggressive strategy to carve out the ABC leadership role in the area of content innovation and audience/user development. In an energetic and dynamic delivery it speaks of “change, innovation, synergy, new technology, interactive content, audiences, that the ABC is streets ahead of the commercial broadcasters, i-view, podcasts, website delivery, access, integrity, energy and ultimately, curiosity. It asks and answers the question, “What’s possible?”

We are promised that audiences can choose to watch what they want, when they want and how they want. But what will they be watching?

At the SPAA Conference 2009, Kim Dalton (ABC Director of Television) pointed out that “what was missing form the current debate is a discussion about the nature and range of local content that will be available as opposed to the platform by which it is delivered”.

“The implications for Australian producers are significant. We need rules around local content. When broadcasters feel the pinch financially, the local content will the first to go. The new platforms will be flooded with cheap content and in Australia, that means getting access to mainly foreign content.” This is of enormous consequence to the media futures of content producers and audiences alike.

The commercial aggregators will argue that it is simply too expensive to produce Australian content for on-line delivery. Their vision of re-packaging television formats, streaming and linked websites from television programmes falls apart rapidly as the advertisers abandon the old free to air model and reduce the budgets with which the broadcasters can commission new works.

Traditional television programming is currently in its death throws, turning to more and more extreme formats in a desperate bid to keep audiences. To a great extent, quality news and current affairs is a thing of the past and we are seeing news largely driven by press releases and a plethora of format driven factual programs. But this is increasingly irrelevant to audiences who have increasingly migrated to alternative platforms for their entertainment and information. The commercial television model is underpinned by advertising that funds programming and a quota system that ensures local content. This model appears to have no place in the new world order. Local content therefore is highly vulnerable.

Why is this important? Content is far more than a commercial product. It plays a significant role in shaping the cultural identity, our national identity and our values. This is why successive Australian governments, both Labor and Liberal have supported the cultural subsidy of the screen industries over the past three decades.

Yet the way that many of us here think about screen content - that is, authored, editorial content with moving pictures and sound – is just a small part of the overall picture. It is in fact merely the tip of the iceberg in the new digital economy. The rest of the iceberg, the main game for business and government, is in delivery of services - financial, business, security, mapping, shopping, search engines, social networking, IPTV etc etc. If you like, content is the cream on top of the cake.

You can actually see this future right now.

I have had the privilege of travelling twice in recent years to South Korea as part of the Digital Media Delegation hosted by the Korea Australian Foundation and Austrade and see first hand the ‘Promised Land’ of high speed interconnectivity. And it is impressive. Korea is the world’s most fibre connected country where 72% of households have high speed broadband. 48 million people belong to Cyworld, a sort of parallel universe where everyone is interconnected via their home pages and which delivers every imaginable web based service. It is driven by a vision for a “ubiquitous society” in which all citizens are connected in the long tail world of socialized media. In order to attract consumers to aggregated services (financial, security, social media, search engines etc etc), business dressed their commercial offerings with rich media content (games, IPTV, pop music, karaoke, movies). It is aggressively marketed as delivering freedom. Infinite choice is supposedly liberating. Does it necessarily follow that if some choice is good, then unlimited choice is nirvana?

So where do we fit into this headlong rush forward into ultra high speed broadband connectivity and the economy it will underpin? What does it mean to be content producers in the future?

The reason that Australians have been highly regarded by Korea, an advanced digital economy which is light years ahead of us in terms of the technology, is that we have a culture that values innovation and creative risk taking. We are at the forefront of innovation in on-line content development, animation and games design.

But we need to understand that right at the moment, Australia is one of the few Western countries where there is virtually no funding, direct or indirect, for the creation of local content for on-line and interactive platforms. There are still no licence fees for on-line material offered by the broadcasters commensurate with licence fees offered for television programs.

I have produced two interactive on-line projects over the past 6 years (William Bligh, Re-enchantment) for ABC On-Line and in development on a third. You have to be very dexterous in putting together budgets for work that is conceived as on-line from the outset. This is distinct from add on on-line extensions to television and radio programs. Fortunately cross-platform can present additional opportunities for financing. For example, Re-enchantment (dir. Sarah Gibson), an interactive journey into the hidden meaning of fairy tales was funded via the following sources:

ABC TV – Licence Fee, ABC On-Line – In-Kind Services (IT, server etc) Producer Offset – 10 x 3 minute television series ensured its eligibility UTS – Digital media research project in-kind services and facilities Screen Australia- Innovation Fund In the process of producing this work, I have discovered that traditional film and television production models are not relevant to producing digital on-line media. I am now managing iterative cycles of content creation, working with content management systems (JIRA), working in a virtual studio linking the team in Melbourne and Sydney, managing vast databases of assets (sound, still image, moving image), engaging content designers and developers to build wire frames, electronic proof of concepts, implement, user testing. It is like being in ever repeating cycles of pre-production.

It is not possible, nor useful, to think in terms of pre-production, production and post production stages following a script development period. It is more like managing a series of parallel story development and interface design stages with continuous feedback loops. It was only 18 months after commencement of the project that we could begin to see the 'rushes' but the project had to be completely designed to delivery level before that was possible. This meant that skills in budgeting, scheduling, team management all had to be adapted.

That said, I believe it is possible to translate filmmaking skills and knowledge into the digital arena. The fundamental producing skills of working with a creative team to ensure the best way to communicate ideas to an audience were translatable. Also skills in project management and ensuring excellence in production values also holds one in good stead.

Moving across screens is essential to survival as a producer and a production reality given our audiences move constantly across screen formats to engage with content. The most exciting aspect in addition to new forms of non-linear story-telling is the profoundly changed relationship with the audience. Cross-platform approaches open the way to more niche audiences and more integrated experiences for audiences. A two-way relationship becomes possible with community building potential of Web 2.0 and 3.0 platforms. The heart of the interactive enchanted forest in Re-enchantment is the platform for UGC (User Generated Content) – that is, the Gallery in which users can upload their own content and the Forums in which they can engage with others as well as the director of the work (the moderator).

In closing, as a creative producer, I am fundamentally having to interrogate my relationship to content in this new environment. I know I am not interested in producing content per se. I want to tell stories, create experiences, take people on emotional journeys, enable better understanding of the world in which we live, the people and institutions that shape our lives. Most importantly, I am interested in doing this in new ways and testing the aesthetic boundaries of the new tools at our disposal. Innovation is a means to an end and we must not get lost in the hype enveloping the current landscape.

I believe that we should value our skills as storytellers, our flexibility in finding new ways to tell those stories and above all our curiosity. It is this capacity to ask ‘What If’ that will underpin our media futures in the new digital economy.