iBroadcasting ?

Here is a 6 month old article I wrote for DigitalStudio Magazine . Still stands the time, I guess..

iBroadcasting ?

The future of digital content distribution.

According to Wikipedia a podcast is a “ multimedia file distributed over the internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers”. 

Podcast and Podcasting are the new hype in the media industry as more and more professionals are getting the impression that a huge revolution is just behind the door. Podcasting offers production professionals an exciting new venue to showcase their talents with a minimal investment. Podcasting started around 2003 when web radios realized that they could use mp3 technology to store their programs on a servers and give listeners the opportunity to reach the contents “on demand” trough streaming , or store the contents on their own Pc. 

This was a true revolution as audiences could access an enormous amount of programming on demand , regardless their geographical position and time zone ; all it was needed was an internet connection,a web browser and and a software mp3 player. 

A subsequent improvement has been the development of RSS technology that enabled users to get automatically updated to the latest podcast releases and automatically download the shows. Broadcasters understood immediately the huge potential of podcasting technology integration to their offer ; The BBC, that was already offering live streaming of most of its radio programs, started riding the new technology and produced downloadable podcasts of some of their most popular shows. 

The real deal in podcasting technology is its portability ; contents can be enjoyed anywhere through portable media players. This is  a massive change as audiences are not physically linked anymore to a conventional media carrier such as Tv , radio or the internet, but can access programming at their convenience as long as the content is stored in their media players. 

Hardware manufacturers as well are riding the wave releasing all sorts of portable media players in any size, color and shape. Apple, through its ipod collection has started the trend; the ipod business is now responsible for the 45% of the latest quarterly total revenue of Apple Computers ; we are talking about 212 million U$ in four months. Furthermore Apple is the leading MP3 distributor with a share of 75% in the total US market. These numbers are impressive but the key to the success of the Ipod operation is not the fancy design and style of the players but the seamless integration with the iTunes Store. Started as a file management application for the ipod  iTunes is now the leading platform for licensed digital media distribution. The introduction of video support in 2005 opened up a freeway for content producer to deliver programming and indeed created new markets. 

Other manufacturers are not sitting on the bench and they are all looking into producing the ultimate ipod killer : Microsoft is launching its Zune player with built in wireless capabilities and radio this december; the equivalent of iTunes will be a site labeled Marketplace but no further details are revealed at this stage. Creative Technology is producing a wide range of mp3 and video players connected to their Zencast media manager ; it is not possible to  purchase audio or video but users can subscribe to a vast free blogging and podcasting community service. Sony, the leading portable music company in the eighties has recently re launched its walkman line with a range of mp3 players; authorized music purchasing is linked to the “Sony Connect” web site that,same as ITunes, is available in many countries but is still far to be accessible worldwide.Many other manufacturers produce their own range of mp3 players but they are all missing the real thing, a distribution manager popular like iTunes.

 Media portability is attracting content producers even more than hardware and software manufacturers. The mp3 technology has completely reshaped the music industry during the past 10 years.

The development of peer to peer technology and the file sharing phenomenon impacted heavily on the music Majors ; in 1998 the total profit was of 3 billion U$, now the numbers are less than the half. Reluctant to lose their usual cuts on CD profit, music majors battled in all the possible way the peer to peer technology, but even if they managed to shut down Napster they could not stop the file sharing evolution. They finally realized that it was a lost battle and start looking into digital right management solutions to protect their assets. 

The online music retailer market is divided among five major players , iTunes e eMusic Real Rhapsody Napster and MSN music. Each company employes a DRM ( digital rights management) system to manage their on line contents : iTunes sells single tracks at 99 cents and allows users to burn the track on an unlimited number of CDs and transfer to any iPod connected to the iTunes application. The restriction is that it is possible to copy playlists only seven times and that the track can play the track on only five computers ; bottom line is that user do not “own” the song but buy the rights to access it.Napster on the other side utilizes a subscription based approach to DRM alongside permanent purchases. Users of the subscription service can download and stream an unlimited amount of music encoded to Windows Media Audio (WMA) while subscribed to the service. But as soon as the user misses a payment the service renders all music downloaded unusable. Napster also charges users who wish to use the music on their portable device an additional $5 per month. Furthermore, Napster requires users to pay an additional $.99 per each track to burn a track to CD or to listen to the track after the subscription expires. Although iTunes is the undisputed leader it is interesting to know that eMusic, the second player on the chart, gives to the end user 100% ownership of the downloaded tracks. 

Apple has recently released video support in their Ipod line and started selling TV shows and movies through the ITunes store.This is the true beginning of the digital media content distribution revolution as Hollywood based production companies realized the potential of selling products digitally using the internet ; only a few big names have  joined Apple’s solution so far, such as Disney , MTV and Fox, but the same dynamic took place in the music industry with audio downloads : a few companies started joining iTunes in the very beginning and then all the rest joined the platform following the huge success of the business model. The quality of video downloads is far to be DVD standard, the price is really not that appealing and the download timings can vary a lot according to the internet bandwidth, but this is just the start; in the near future the video quality will improve, the price will drop and most of all it will be possible to playback content on conventional home TV systems rather than on media players and PC screens. 

If on one side big corporations and hardware manufacturers are benefitting from this revolution, on the other there is the creation of a brand new playground for independent producers.  Creativity can now be showcased bypassing the traditional pathways and producers can access audiences directly. One recent example of this innovation is the LonleyGirl15 video blog on YouTube, the website recently acquired by Google: this fictional video reached the amazing number of 15 millions viewers, same as the audience of the first episode of  Lost season  in North America. The LonleyGirl15 blog is a typical example of the potential of these new distribution mediums ; recently video-casting has found new means even in politics when Angela Merkel, Canchelor of Germany, held her first video podcast speech and decided to use this system for her weekly talks to the nation.

 

The Middle East panorama seems to be a little sleepy to the phenomenon ; some publications are offering small podcasts on their on line sites; broadcasters are not offering video podcast version of their contents and maybe the only real active entity is the Dubai based Podme.org ; this site is offering to anybody with enthusiasm and passion the chance of getting hosted and become part of their creative team. The scenario will radically change soon as the Arabic speaking community is extremely vast and potentially very appealing to advertisers and producers.  Of course the biggest question mark to the development of podcasting and video podcasting is that it is not a revenue-making business model yet.

There are advertisement embedded in podcasts but the earnings usually are very limited and they cover only the server hosting costs. One factor will change the system very rapidly anyway, especially in the Middle East : through the video casting and podcasting technology is possible to track down exactly how many people access a posted program; this will make advertisers life much easier as they can finally figure out the precise popularity of shows and address their investments accordingly. 

Another sign of the rising popularity of podcasting has been the recent Podcast and New Media Expo that took place in California in the end of September ; the event has been a huge success and saw hardware manufacturers, pro audio and video makers and new media content creators gathering under one roof and discussing the future of the business. Information about the event can be reached at the website www.portablemediaexpo.com, and guess what.. they even have podcasts of all the seminars. The future looks bright, and it already started looking so for microphones and audio software manufacturers that found a new business segment in the thousands of podcast producers around the world looking for better sonic quality in their shows. As producers are typically producing their shows on their home PC or laptops it is interesting to notice how they are getting close to professional technologies: pod-casters are getting familiar with audio compressors, condenser microphones, multi track audio editors and audio plug ins. At the end of the day it is pretty simple to plug in a microphone on a Pc, record a speech and export it to a mp3 file but producers that are making the real difference in the podcasting arena are not the ones with simply good ideas but the ones that produce a professional sounding programs with cutting edge contents. 

It will be also very intriguing to see the development of video podcasting as producing a professional looking video podcast involves much more arts and crafts than creating a conventional audio podcast. Producers will need to start “thinking for the net” as contents will need to be realized in very limited amount of time and  will need to be very light in file size. It is curious to notice that similar to what happened in audio the industry was moving toward higher audio resolutions (192Khz,24 bits) while end users where making the compressed mp3 file popular; now broadcasters are moving into HD and videocast is gaining popularity.   

We cannot predict exactly how the podcasting and video-casting industry will evolve but for sure this is the first time that audiovisuals can exploit the power of internet, and another thing is for sure : this is a point of no return.