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PM - YouTube poses threat to TV, say media commentators
www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1720331.htm

PM - Monday, 21 August , 2006 18:38:18Reporter: David MarkMARK COLVIN: If you haven’t heard of YouTube yet, you probably don’t have the Internet. The website has had one of the most spectacular rises since the arrival of the search engine Google, at the end of last century. YouTube lets people share anything, from home movies to their own documentaries or comedies, with the world. It was only launched in February last year, but already 100 million clips are watched on YouTube each day. Many videos are banal, badly shot and poorly edited. But among the 35,000 new offerings a day, are some true gems. Now some media commentators think YouTube, and others like it, represent a real threat to conventional TV channels.

David Mark reports.

DAVID MARK: Meet Peter, AKA “Geriatric 1927″.

PETER: What I hope I’ll be able to do is just to bitch and grumble about life in general from the perspective of an old person whose been there and done that.

DAVID MARK: Strange is it may seem, Peter’s bitches and grumbles in the form of a grainy, one shot, two-minute video, called First Try, have been seen 1.6 million times in the past two weeks on one website alone. He’s become an Internet phenomenon thanks to YouTube, a site which allows people to show their videos on the net.

PETER: I got addicted to YouTube. So I thought I’d have a go at doing one myself.

DAVID MARK: And 35,000 other people are doing the same thing every day, uploading their videos to YouTube where they’re watched by 100 million viewers.
(sound of music: “I’m addicted to YouTube. I’m addicted to YouTube, yes, I am.”)

DAVID MARK: YouTube is huge and it’s come out of nowhere. The site was launched earlier last year and it’s since become one of the most popular on the web.
Gary Hayes is the Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney.

GARY HAYES: YouTube is known for not having an advertorial voice as such. So, it’s the users put what they want up there. Even if it’s copyright. Even if they’ve grabbed something off the TV.
But more important is this individual story - the users telling stories about themselves. And it has a lot of integrity and honesty. There isn’t that sense that things have been processed too much and packaged.

DAVID MARK: Indeed the opposite is true. Many of the videos on the site are quite frankly awful, but they’re on the web for all world to see. They may be as humdrum as someone eating ice-cream, as compelling as the animated video of a woman who took a photo of herself every day for three years, or bizarre as the pop singer, Britney Spears, having a crisis of confidence.

BRITNEY SPEARS: I’m ugly (groans). I’m getting crap on my teeth because I’m nervous and all. I don’t know. It’s weird.

DAVID MARK: But no website can survive on credibility alone. Sooner or later they have to make some money and inevitably that means advertising.
It’s an area YouTube is now beginning to explore. And advertisers like Harold Mitchell, the Chairman of Australia’s largest media buying company, Mitchell and Partners, would like a piece of the action.

HAROLD MITCHELL: I think it’s a fantastic concept because it comes into what Generation Y, so-called, that’s the people under 30 are interested in. They are in for short content, not a long attention span, the quick fix, if you like, and involvement. And that’d what YouTube is, it’s absolutely right on the generation. We’d be very interested, I can tell you with as many visits a day that they get.

DAVID MARK: Gary Hayes says that 15 years after the World Wide Web was invented, the dream that anyone could publish anything online is now being realised.
He says sites like YouTube, it’s photographic equivalent, Flickr, and the virtual community, Myspace, where mainly young people can chat, share videos, photos and listen to music, are the new models for media.

GARY HAYES: We’re now seeing that the big shift between scheduled and on-demand content. We’re moving away from broadcast one-to-many, to many-to-many. So people can see what they want when they want. Traditional broadcasters are going to face a problem here.

HAROLD MITCHELL: There’s no doubt that this is the way of the future to the point where the big media companies are certainly taking each way bet by buying into different parts of the Internet space like this. Rupert Murdoch’s moved into Myspace, the same thing will happen with a YouTube. This is something of a threat to the current free-to-air networks in the future.

DAVID MARK: So how will the media companies and in particular free-to-air TV networks respond to this threat posed by the massive audience and sheer variety offered by websites like YouTube?

GARY HAYES: It’s the question at the moment. We’re on the tipping point and the tension is, for most people what do they spend their time doing? So, on-demand, which includes YouTube, the ability to go and find what you’re interested at anytime is far more attractive to more and more people now. So the TV networks have to face up to that, and have a strategy to offer more on-demand content. So they do need to have much more of resonant relationship with the audience, and call for content from them. So that they’re effectively not just TV one-pointer, which is pushing content at people full of adverts. They’re actually pulling content. You can still get the advertiser’s interested because the eyeball is now more and more on user-generated content.

DAVID MARK: The Chairman of the Advertising Federation of Australia, Russell Howcroft, is another fan, but he still sees a role for free-to-air TV.

RUSSELL HOWCROFT: There is still a great attraction to sitting down in an evening, and seeing what’s on the box. That attraction hasn’t gone. But there is a new attraction, which of course is this interaction we can have. So, look, I dare say there’s room for all of us.
(sound of music: “YouTube”)

MARK COLVIN: David Mark compiled that report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4779329.stm
Young drive ‘radical media shift’Teenagers on internet - Young adults are moving away from traditional mediaThe “networked generation” is driving a radical shift in media consumption, says UK telecoms regulator Ofcom.

Sixteen to 24 year olds are spurning television, radio and newspapers in favour of online services, says the regulator’s study. The 2006 Ofcom report also found that increasingly households are turning to broadband and digital TV. And it notes 1.8 million homes are now using their broadband connections for internet telephone calls. This generation has grown up with new technologies - and it is this generation for whom the uptake is instinctiveSpokesman, Ofcom

At a glance: Ofcom reportThe Ofcom report analysed industry and consumer trends in television, radio and telecommunications during 2005-6. It discovered young adults, whom it has dubbed the “networked generation”, are embracing new technologies much more quickly than the general population. Sixteen to 24 year olds, it reports, spend nearly three hours on the net each week. Seventy percent (compared to 41% of the general population) have used some kind of social networking site, such as My Space, and one in five have their own website or blog. Half of the group owns a games console and/or an MP3 player.

Shifting habitsOfcom’s research suggests this online lifestyle may have contributed to a fall in television viewing - this age group watch seven hours less television per week than the average viewer. But when they do watch TV, it found they are turning away from public service broadcasting in favour of digital channels. The reduced consumption of other media, such as newspapers, magazines and radio, amongst this age-group compared to the general population, has also thought to have been driven by the net. A spokesman for Ofcom said: “The speed at which consumption habits for this age group is changing is faster than other groups.

QUICK GUIDEBroadband”They are leaving the traditional media and moving towards new media.”This generation has grown up with new technologies - and it is this generation for whom the uptake is instinctive.”Kay Withers, a research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), said: “There have been lots of studies showing the younger generation are shifting away from traditional to new media, but at IPPR we are seeking to understand why this is and what this means. “We want to find out what it means to turn away from newspapers and public service broadcasting, and to find out the types of news sources they are now favouring. “This could have a major impact on media regulation, public policy and on the political world too.”

Connected householdsThe report also found technology adoption is not limited to the young. From 2004 to 2005, the number of households with broadband connections increased by 63%, while a total of 18.3m homes now have digital television. Ofcom also said that a number of “converged services” had arrived on the market, such as internet telephony, internet television offerings and television to mobile content. Mobile phones are also playing an increasingly important role; Ofcom found as many households had a mobile phone as had a landline. But despite increased consumption, the average household spend on telecoms fell by 5% to £76 a month between 2004 and 2005. Ofcom chief operating officer Ed Richards said: “Our research reveals dramatic and accelerating changes across all communications industries. “The sector is being transformed by greater competition, falling prices and the erosion of traditional revenues and audiences.”

Viacom considers bid for BeboBy Tom Braithwaite in London and Joshua Chaffin in New YorkPublished: August 7 2006 22:07 Last updated: August 7 2006 22:07

Viacom, the US media group, is considering a bid for Bebo, the social networking site. The acquisition would represent the latest attempt by Viacom to regain ground lost to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in the social networking and user-generated content realm.

Viacom lost out to its rival in a bidding war last year for MySpace, now the world’s leading social networking site, when News Corp paid $580m (£304m) for the young company. The acquisition caused News Corp’s rivals to look again at the value of sites that allow users to share their own messages, photos, music and videos. News of Viacom’s interest in Bebo came a day after the media group announced a deal with Google to distribute its content through thousands of niche websites and blogs affiliated to the internet company.

The company is also believed to have run the rule over Facebook, number two social networking site in the US behind MySpace, as its double-digit growth in cable network advertising sales begins to slow. Bebo has far fewer users than the sites in the US but is number one in Ireland and second in the UK. It claims 25m registered users worldwide compared with more than 90m for MySpace. Viacom has approached Bebo but its plans are at a very early stage. The media giant is understood to have instructed its mergers and acquisitions team to look at the company.

Michael Birch, British founder and chief executive of San Francisco-based Bebo, told the FT he was in no hurry to sell – his company was still growing rapidly. He said he received approaches about once a fortnight to sell Bebo. Many were from traditional media groups “like Viacom”, although he declined to comment on whether the US group was a potential bidder. One recent rumour suggested BT, the telecoms group, had offered £300m but had been told to think “north of $1bn”. “That one rumour raised our profile in the US more than anything else,” said Mr Birch. “It is a ridiculous amount of money.” Asked if he would have sold to BT had it offered £300m, he said: “If I sell it, I’d have to start from scratch.” Mr Birch and Xochi Birch, his wife and co-founder, have been visiting UK media companies over the past few days. They included ITV, the broadcaster, but it is understood a possible sale was not discussed.

www.ft.com/cms/s/492e898c-264c-11db-afa1-0000779e2340.html