CANNES: Content is king. An oftentimes overused cliché but one that will become ever more relevant to an evermore rapidly fast-changing audiovisual landscape that is leaving all the big media players scrambling to get a grip on it.
That was one of the key points that came through during Tuesday's keynote session that launched the very first Mipcom CEO Superpanel which had as its theme 'The Changing Landscape of Television - The Threats and Opportunities'.
And while no one really can tell with certainty where the new technologies are taking media, it is new age companies like Yahoo! And Google that are probably better equipped to ride the tiger as it were than the traditional media giants. At least that was the view of the Superpanel moderator, media analyst and chairman of APAX Media Advisory Board Neil Blackley.
Why Yahoo! And Google? Because they are young companies and it is the young that are adopting what the new technologies have to offer. What this indicates is that as media fragmentation continues apace, the value of quality and focussed content value will rise exponentially. Former BBC Director General and current HIT Entertainment chairman Greg Dyke spoke up for traditional broadcasters by stressing that they would get a presence on all platforms and continue to dominate the TV landscape.
The Superpanel brought together former Dyke, Roger Lynch, CEO of UK-based Internet Protocol Television company Homechoice/VideoNet, Yun-Joo Jung, CEO of Korean national broadcaster KBS, Robert Dowling, President Film and Performing Arts, VNU Business Publications and Publisher/Editor of The Hollywood Reporter, Abe Peled, CEO of UK-based digital pay television solution provider NDS and Omar Javaid, senior director of leading mobile services solutions provider Qualcomm.
According to KBS CEO Yun-Joo Jung, digitalisation will accelerate the decentralisation of media control but broadcasters that embrace new technologies will survive the brave new world.
Qualcomm's Omar Javaid spoke about the oncoming mobile video revolution and spoke of how video services on mobile were second only to voice in terms of user interest.
And as was the case with the Internet, adult content will be a big driver in the mobile TV space as too gaming, pointed out Blackley.
Speaking about gaming, Javaid spoke of how China already had 500 million + subscribers and in India it was nearing 250 million.
Yun-Joo Jung saw mobile as a key device through which advertisers would target young people.
One point that the Mindshares of the world might take away from this was the common assertion that brands getting into the content creation game was a recipe for disaster. As Robert Dowling put it, brands can offer consumer insights and provide clarity in terms of marketing and promoting a show targeting the current demographics. But as for creating content. It just wouldn't work, he averred.
