As I argued in a previous post, for the next few years Internet TV will mostly rely on repackaging content originally produced for broadcast television (i.e. terrestrial, cable or satellite TV). This is partly because producing appealing content is expensive, partly because new formats will take some time to evolve, and partly because audiences' practices and tastes will change only gradually.
What do we mean by 'repackaging' television for the Internet?
- At its most unmediated, repackaging means simply 'transmitting' broadcast channels over the Internet to TV sets in such a way that the user experience is the same as with broadcast. Indeed, considerable effort is currently being put into making channel-flicking in IPTV as seamless as possible. Before they offer anything novel, the new technologies need to prove that they can support the old practices flawlessly.
- A somewhat more remediated case is the live, 24/7 streaming of TV channels over the Internet, meant to be consumed on a computer, via an application (e.g. Real Player) that is usually surrounded by other unrelated windows. Many broadcasters currently do this.
- An even more remediated example is the publishing of entire programmes to the Internet after (or before) they go on air.
- Perhaps the most interesting examples, and the most 'remediated', are those in which TV content is cut up into small units, each only a few minutes long --such as individual news reports or music clips-- and then put together as lists of options, playlists or other forms of aggregation. This is currently done by various news and music services.
Notice two things that happen as we go from unmediated to remediated: (i) the units of content borrowed from broadcast TV become smaller and smaller; and (ii) the finished products require more and more editorial work --over and above the work put into making the broadcast content-- before they can be considered ready for consumption.
To elaborate on the most remediated case (and focusing on the web): Before a news or music clip can be considered 'published' it must be placed --or embedded-- within a larger context that will define the overall user experience of which this clip is only a part. Among other things, this may include:
- Inbound links: Video-centric web pages listing related clips, and incidental mentions in text-centric web pages
- Outbound links: Links to related content, advertised products, etc
- Temporal embedding: other clips (e.g. advertisements) that precede or follow the clip in question
- Accompanying text to be displayed alongside the video
Crafting this context is an essential part of the production process of web video, because what users experience is this overall context, and not isolated clips. It goes without saying that this applies to all video and not necessarily short clips (and that it even applies to television, as it is just a refinement of Raymond Williams' old concept of 'flow'); but clips make the need for context more obvious because an isolated 2-minute clip is not an experience worthy of the name.
There will be some who will argue that embedding video in a web of links cannot be considered creative editorial work; that it is instead just a matter of 'distribution' and 'navigation'; and that it is therefore in principle automatable. But, as those who have been reading this blog may anticipate, I think that is a mistaken view--on two related grounds:
- First, audiences don't consume abstract content--they consume experiences. Altough experiences are partly shaped by audiences, they are what content --and its producers-- are judged by.
- Second, context and aggregation are forms of expression that require judgement, training and creativity--as good a characterisation of 'content' as any
And finally, while it is true that the 'community out there' will contribute to building the web of links on which a piece of content exists, the initial form that this takes is crucial to content's subsequent success--as I have argued elsewhere.
In summary: content that is ready for broadcasting is not ready for on-demand media. Before it is, additional editorial value needs to be added to craft a context that is in itself an additional layer of content. Without a context content remains unpublished; with a bad context it becomes bad content. If this is true, it is true quite generally.
The scenario outlined above suggests certain workflows and business processes, which in turn will necessitate organisational structures and professional roles. Importantly, these will define the requirements for, and be influenced by, the tools that the software industry can invent to support the budding on-demand media industry.
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