Digital to challenge broadcasters
Source : Globe & Mail
December 1, 2004
OTTAWA — Canadian broadcasters will face a critical battle over the next few years, as the digital revolution ushers in the greatest overhaul of the conventional radio and television industries in decades, industry officials were told yesterday.
While the overhaul could create new opportunities for some broadcasters, industry officials said, there are no technological inventions to create easy paths away from the storm.
Mike Lee, vice-president, strategy and development for Rogers Cable Inc., said the industry needs to prepare itself for the change, even if it doesn't want to.
"Consumers are driving the change, not necessarily industry driving the change," he said.
Speaking during the final panel session of the three-day Canadian Association of Broadcasters annual convention in Ottawa, Mr. Lee warned broadcasters not to rely on regulation or litigation to try to preserve the status quo. Technology has given consumers the tools to fulfill many of their wishes, and the industry will face the consequences if it doesn't find ways to respond, he said.
It's much easier to keep a customer than convince them to return once they've left, Mr. Lee added.
"And when they leave the system, they take all of their revenue with them," he said.
The television and radio industries haven't experienced a major technological overhaul in decades, industry officials were told, since the advent of colour television and FM radio more than a generation ago.
Kaan Yigit, president of Toronto technology market research firm Solutions Research Group, warned that broadcasters should focus more on the customers' wishes and needs than the devices themselves. "It's not about technology, it's about freedom."
Industry experts said the trends will likely also include:
- Growing demand for interconnectedness between products and users.
- Increased prominence of wireless, including within the home.
- Mobility of devices, including television.
- Increasing market dominance of younger consumers who grew up in the digital era and who expect their devices to work quickly and be available immediately.
- Growing adoption of high-speed Internet, and a host of interconnected consumer electronic devices.
- Continued growth of all things digital, and the death of analog.
- Increasing marginalization of the federal broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
