Moving dollars to digital - and back

Last Updated on Monday, 03 August 2009 21:05 Written by Forum Editor Tuesday, 07 April 2009 20:48

In the first TV Production Seminar, Ben Liebmann from FreemantleMedia discussed his thoughts on the future of commercially successfully television based content. In the lead up to the event Peter White spoke to Ben to get an introduction to some of his insights.

FremantleMedia is one of the world's largest international creators and producers of entertainment brands – owned by RTL and forming part of the Bertelsmann Group.

As Vice President of Licensing (ANZ), Ben Liebmann is responsible for the development and commercialisation of FremantleMedia properties off-screen in areas such as online, interactive television and mobile. His responsibilities also include more traditional ancillary rights businesses including brand licensing and sponsorship, live entertainment, gaming, brand funded entertainment, consumer products and merchandise.

“While that list covers a lot of ground the rapid expansion of opportunities in the digital arena occupies a lot of my time,” said Liebmann. “From a content perspective I work within FremantleMedia’s three pillared digital strategy.”

1 - repurposing of content. Content that was produced from one platform, usually television, is repurposed for digital distribution whether that be download to own, on demand streaming or official websites etc.

2 - extending that content and its associated brands to provide a richer, more engaging experience around those brands using digital platforms. This involves providing additional content or experiences around television programmes that weren’t delivered on air but can be delivered by mobile or the web.

3 - creation of original content or original brands that may start online or by mobile and may migrate back to TV.

Within this framework he is keen to avoid the mistakes of the music industry that was first to suffer when consumers used new technology to permanently alter the digital content marketplace.

“We have had the luxury of watching and learning and my one criticism is that the music industry stopped focussing on what consumers wanted. Successful corporations always find a way to deliver what the consumer wants and I believe content owners and broadcasters should also focus on consumer demand as there will be potentially infinite ways we can deliver content to suit that demand.”

Liebmann cites film studios’ initial fears that the advent of VHS would bring the death of the industry. “Then they realised they were content companies and not in the business of theatrical releases. Now the film studios have many models such has theatrical, rentals, sell though, subscription, free to air, hotels, in-flight, download-to-own, download-to-rent, etc.

Successfully moving dollars to digital – and back
“We are an IP content business but commercially we are very mindful that television is our heritage and will be the centre of what we do moving forward. We shouldn’t follow the new opportunities to the detriment of television – instead we take a complimentary approach. We hear talk of dollars moving to digital but we see this happening when it is built around properties that are coming from television.”

FremantleMedia’s greatest digital commercial successes have been extensions of the company’s TV shows where it has been in partnerships with broadcasters and worked very closely with them on air and online. By being involved broadcasters have seen commercial and strategic incentives to drive a 360-degree experience.

Leading examples of FremantleMedia’s work are the MySpace Road Tour and the US series Secret Girlfriend.

The successful MySpace Road Tour saw FremantleMedia partner with MySpace to develop an online Australian competition to celebrate the social network’s second birthday. The project documented a journey across Australia to find the 10 most extraordinary MySpace members with a prize $10,000.

“Our colleagues in the US, UK and Europe are now in discussions with MySpace about taking our digital format into those territories. One of FremantleMedia’s greatest strengths is that we have an amazing worldwide distribution network and we can move content, ideas and formats to a global audience very quickly. The idea of American Idol being sold into more than one hundred countries and the Idol format being reproduced in over 30 countries comes from scale. We hope there will be no difference using digital models and want to push really fantastic Australian ideas back overseas.”

Secret Girlfriend came out on a mobile and online comedy platform owned by FremantleMedia and this has now transitioned to television with the commissioning of a series by Comedy Central – the first time the company has created a digital format and seen it go back to television.

Experimental Future:
“We are still in experimental phase because consumers have not yet decided what they want, how they want it, on what device and when. They are yet to fully decide because it will continue to evolve and that creates challenges because content creators and content aggregators have to follow each development. And that is costly because not every opportunity will succeed.

“The CEO of RTL has previously told the business that he would rather we be there when it doesn't work than not be there when it does. We hope to get to the point where the value of each of those individual businesses will be far greater than the original content that was created.”