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You Tube
Frank Dillitzer
Dirk Engel, Head of Research,Universal McCann
Prof. Dr. Michael Meyen
Peter Christmann
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One thing that is certain, though, is that internet TV, video communities and peer-to-peer TV (P2P) have triggered a real boom, particularly amongst young users. It can no longer be overseen that the good old television is facing strong, worldwide competition from the internet.
It is, of course, obvious that TV content will, in the future, be distributed more via the internet. It is also a fact that television channels have had their day as being the only platform for the distribution of audiovisual content. Young people, in particular, feel drawn, almost as if by magic, to video sites such Google’s subsidiary, YouTube, and are increasingly turning to the internet and into the download era. The fear which broadcasters have, namely that the favoured young target group will no longer watch their early evening soaps and, instead, watch online video sites is understandable - and well founded, particularly since more of these sites are appearing. These include Joost (formerly, The Venice Project), the internet TV service created by clever Scandinavians, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, through which MTV, as first German music station, has also been broadcasting since October 2007. After they seriously shook up the music industry with the internet music exchange, Kazaa, and created a furore with the internet telephone service, Skype, (meanwhile sold to ebay for around 2.6 billion US dollars), the young millionaires are now starting an assault on TV. They are doing this with the help of media giant, Viacom, a capital of around 45 million US dollars and a P2P network. There are fewer video clips on offer but, instead, more films and series which are, on top of all this, also of a high quality. Swiss IPTV service, Zattoo, also recorded a deluge of visitors and, in October 2007, welcomed its millionth user. This figure included 80,000 German surfers who have only had access to Zattoo since September.
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Success not always so sure
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The internet may open totally new forms of TV for the viewer and the initiators sometimes also come into great wealth, as was the case with YouTube. Yet this is not always the case for the many other ambitious internet pioneers, the many adventurers, who also want a piece of the cake for themselves. Success and bankruptcy are often very close together. It is, nevertheless, enough to put at least a little fear into conventional, real time television.
At Europe’s biggest television trade fair, the Mip-TV in Cannes, considerable irritation about this new competition from the internet could be felt amongst the television producers, film buyers and station bosses. Television, which is now getting on a bit is, justifiably, worried about its selling points which used to be unique. It can no longer be ignored that several TV companies will be considerably ruffled by this increased competition; some may not even survive it. Gone are the days when the heads of programme decided what would be shown on our screens and when. Today’s @-generation ticks differently and wants to be its own producer and maker.
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Online adventurers
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If you take a look at the internet TV site, Global-ITV (www-global-itv.com), there are, meanwhile, 6,300 new internet broadcasters like this worldwide, most of which are free and freely available. Top of these charts is, of course, the USA with around 2,200 stations followed by Germany with a number which varies between 420 and 660. That these various developments have their origins, like many other trends, in the »homeland« of television, i.e. the USA, will hardly come as a great surprise to anyone. A few years ago, before »good old Germany« recognised the new trend, a format called »Rocketboom« created a furore in the USA. The format, which began in 2004 with around 700 viewers a day, now counts, with more than 300,000 downloads per day, to the world’s most successful video blogs. Bavaria is, meanwhile, also playing a considerable role in all this with stations such as Alpen-TV, Avevita.TV (the first internet-TV video travel guide in, from and about Bavaria), BMW-TV (all about cars) and Bavaria Landtag-TV, City TV (with films on hotels and restaurants), German Investment Television (information on the Dax), Garden magazine-TV (a paradise for gardeners), Oktoberfest-TV (only broadcast when the annual October beer festival is held) and Speed-up-TV for sports fans with films covering 32 sports (including badminton, billiards, handicap sport, weight lifting, judo, chess), the Sci Fi channel and Weißwurst-TV. Doschauher (roughly translated: »look here!«) is, for example, web TV produced by students from Deggendorf college. Viewers tuning in here may well see that the »next programme will be next term« and will, instead, have to make do with archive material. In other words, these stations cover absolutely everything. Yet you can lose one thing very quickly in this »online jungle« - a clear overview!
Another form which is also flourishing in this vast television landscape is call-in TV. As good money can be earned with this, more and more stations are financing themselves with telephone calls from viewers, frenzied fee payers. From simple, almost intelligence insulting quiz questions, to consumer tips, advice, stock exchange and nutrition tips, to star predictions - the daily surge of calls makes not only the telephones ring but also the cash tills. Older viewers, in particular, or those who are not so skilled with the internet, prefer to use the phone and are then often surprised when they receive a high telephone bill. Mobile phone - the favourite »toy« of German kids and others who are still young at heart, will also, in the future, be increasingly used as a mobile platform for TV offers.
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| New business models needed |
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In order to keep up with these changing consumer needs and not let standard television become a totally outdated model, the private and public TV stations need to come up with new business models. Yet their relationship to the web is somewhat ambivalent as it is not only their digital competition which is lurking here. So-called IPTV represents new and alternative means of circulation. For the broadcasting services, IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), which describes the transmission of broadband applications such as TV programmes or films via a digital data network, signifies an additional possibility for increasing cable distribution compared to the classic means of distribution until now, such as terrestrial, cable and satellite. There are, meanwhile, many things which speak in favour of television being increasingly via the »parallel universe« Internet Protocol, even though many of the projects, until now, have had a pilot nature to them.
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Television on call
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Broadcasters are also seeing opportunities for tapping into new income sources in pay services and lucrative download offers. The internet, in particular, is the ideal ground for video pay services, for example, which are currently sprouting up all over the place. If you take a look at the USA as pioneer, internet shops and online video stores have, in the past year, made around 98 million dollars; in 2007 the goal is even 279 million. Yet the US market research company, Forrester Research, is predicting an end to this boom as, »the attempt to offer specific content for payment is faced by more channels broadcasting via the internet which are financed by advertising.« And even iTunes & co. can’t survive in the long term when faced with free providers.
So how are the classic providers of TV content reacting to the new competition in the internet which is luring away a large part of their, mainly young, viewers? There is no standard answer, also here. Some people, such as Prof. Markus Schächter, Director of the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF - Germany’s national public television broadcaster), see the digital television landscape as an opportunity to reach, on new platforms, those viewers who want to use television »independent of time or location and in a mobile way.« The public broadcasters, in particular, are waiting for the financial means to get on this bandwagon and to be able to also finally invest more money in advertising.
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Football: networked through media
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German football record champions, FC Bayern, are amongst those who have recently launched their own channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/fcbayern). The famous football club started its own internet site, FCB.tv, together with Telekom, already a while ago. Here, paying subscribers can view, in on-demand mode, game reports, background information, interviews, home stories from famous footballers and many other insider videos. The YouTube site now also shows free films from the FCB-tv archive, unfortunately neither game clips or highlights from the federal league or the UEFA Cup as these can only be viewed on FCB.tv. Despite this, it is still a clever idea of the Bavarians as they are now, after FC Chelsea, FC Barcelona and AC Milano, the fourth football club which aims to reach fans worldwide in this way and they have taken one more step into a media-shaped future. »We are pleased at having a new exclusive co-operation with YouTube - the world’s biggest online video site,« said Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, CEO of FC Bayern, after the deal. Yet this »good news« is somewhat surprising - not so long ago the federal league team and the Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH (DFL) played a counter strike and strongly refused the publicising of private federal league videos on YouTube.
IPTV is, of course, also an omnipresent subject at the Medientage München (Munich Media Days). Here questions will be discussed including: how can lean-forward use in the internet be transferred to the living rooms of the classic TV viewer and through which elements can viewers be offered added value in television using IP. In talks and discussions participants, including Borris Brandt of Endemol, Christoph Hammerschmidt (n-tv) and Uwe Bernhard Wache (Euro I/Yavido), will examine these cardinal questions. Select panels in the television category examining this include: »YouTube, MyVideo & Co.« - In search of the business model (Wednesday, 7. November, 4pm) and »Peer-to-Peer-TV: Will Joost & Co. revolutionise the TV world?« (Thursday, 8. November, 10am). One thing is certain already now: the »tangled web« between television and internet remains intriguing!
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Webradio 
Web-TV 
