NEW MEDIA: GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS: PART 1 June 16, 2011 by Binger Reporter Chris Westendorp
“This revolution is not about technology, it is about consumer behavior!”, Bobby Allen from MUBI states firmly. Allen is the vice-president of business development for MUBI.com, the fast growing indie/art house VoD platform that connects film lovers from all over the world. He talks about the arrival of future film distribution. People not only watch films differently than before - anywhere and anytime – but they share information also differently. That’s where social networks kick in. “Use social media, use social networks. Because if you want your film to be watched, get your audience to do it for you.”
Allen believes strongly in social media and trusted word of mouth networks to get your film distributed, he believes in building up relations with the audience. And that’s what he does with MUBI, building relations with film lovers from all over the world. “There is no point in fighting the future. So, join in,” he tells the audience, “think new, think big and think quick.”
The audience was about sixty Dutch producers, distributors, film festival executives, a few platforms (cable, telecom), and various other media professionals. They gathered together at Binger to get an update on the international developments in new media. The update session is organized by Media Desk Nederland and the Binger Filmlab and is the first of three sessions. The others will take place later this year. Part 2 in September is the flip side: then, the Benelux new media VOD platforms and key active distributors/producers take the stage, and Part 3 will drill down into more practical individualized tailored detail assistance.
A quick moment of ‘crowd sourcing the audience’ revealed that the participants were either eager to learn not only about what is happening in the field and in some cases already looking for business opportunities, but also frankly interested in how to actually monetize this and to hear from other countries who are already making money in the field, which models and approaches were working.
Both groups were served well as the line-up of international guest speakers promised a great day. As a participant put it: “these people know what they are doing and what works and what not.” And that was very true as all of them work successfully in the business of new media, and as everybody knows, that is not an easy business to make money in.
Before Wendy Bernfeld, from Rights Stuff, took off with her presentation of The Big Picture of the Digital Landscape, she asked the moderator to watch the time for her, “As I can go on and on once I get started”(she joked);” its so much ground to cover in so little time.” Bernfeld started her presentation by summing up skeptical thoughts the audience might have about new media. It’s a time sucker. It’s too complex. It doesn’t make money. Who wants to see my film on a small screen anyway? “I know the cynicism,” Bernfeld told us, “but that is out of date, no longer true. People are by now making money with VoD, not just for mainstream but also indie and niche sectors, and it is increasing. New media is here to stay, and morphing with traditional media, so better take advantage of it!”
45 Minutes was all Bernfeld had to share her knowledge with us; knowledge accumulated over more than a decade specialized in internet and new media dealings, and another decade before that in traditional media/pay TV. Slide after slide with facts, figures and juicy anecdotes convinced the audience that this new media market is already more established out there and needs to be tackled with fresh and pragmatic approaches. She also discussed how producers can incorporate new media and other screens into earlier stage development and production phases (transmedia, cross platform case studies) instead of just distribution after the fact. Bernfelds’ love for her work was eminent as she talked with great enthusiasm from the first minute till the last one. After the moderator made Bernfeld stop spilling her knowledge over us Rene Goossens (producer at The Productie) spoke from his heart when he asked: “Okay. So now I know all this. What do I do now? Where do I start?” Bernfeld had an answer to that question too: check your shelves, be realistic about what will sell and what not, and see what you want to get online and in what way. Window them intelligently, across different business models – some for Pay per view, / VoD, some for subscription models (SVoD), some for free models (ad-supported, Ad-VoD), etc.
But she warned us: those starting out with digital distribution will encounter lots of rights issues. “No two deals are the same,” confirms Simon Morris, one of the founders of LOVEFiLM.com, “So it takes a lot of time.” Morris gave a presentation on LOVEFiLM where you can rent or watch online about 70.000 films, in addition to traditional DVD viewings. This means that LOVEFiLM has made thousands of film contracts with various partners. Although LOVEFiLM.com doesn’t operate yet in the Netherlands (it does in the UK mainly, and just recently began in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Germany) it is interested clearly in hosting Dutch movies. Morris encouraged producers to contact LOVEFiLM.com if they wanted their film in the catalogue in the other regions and it was felt that eventually they would also set up locally one day here as well. LOVEFiLM, started in 2007 in the UK with a rental DVD service and since then watching films online had been growing rapidly. Some refer to them as the Netflix of Europe….
For those worried about the contract-part, content licensing consultants such as Rights Stuff, and digital aggregators such as Under The Milky Way can help out, as well as traditional and new breed distributors and sales agents depending on their skill set and contacts. There are of course many others too. Many of the larger US platforms, such as Netflix, iTunes etc, prefer to deal with aggregators instead of one-or-two film deals with the producers or distributors themselves. They claim that it saves both parties a lot of time. It is film and genre dependent. Wendy Bernfeld discussed a more recent trend of ‘split rights’ deals where it was also possible for certain filmmakers to keep some of the rights with the traditional agents, and hold back the digital rights for themselves or specialized digital advisors or agents…. to maximize revenues across all windows and platforms. Pierre Alexandre Labelle co-founder of Under the Milky Way told about his experience with iTunes as an iTunes-preferred aggregator. Although, again, iTunes-VoD does not officially yet have a ‘store’ online for video in the Netherlands, it is growing as a VoD platform abroad and in various countries of the EU and will eventually (probably quite shortly) cross over to The Netherlands, and thus is another potentially interesting platform for Dutch distributors and producers. iTunes is in the transactional VoD and download to own model (as opposed to subscription or ad VoD) so again, windowing and rights deals are relevant.
The Netherlands, with so far no Netflix, LOVEFiLM.com nor iTunes locally is lagging behind with VoD and thus huge in illegal downloading- not just for mainstream films or TV but for arthouse and indie films – where there’s no legal source then people find what they want somehow.
When the audience was asked for a reason, the most obvious one is the money: the Dutch do not like to pay if it can be avoided.” But that’s what they say about the Germans too and they are not reacting as slow as the Dutch are,” Morris counters.
Could it be that the Dutch public broadcasters, who own many rights, make the rights issues even more complicated? Or are the Dutch simply still in their comfort zone, not willing to embrace the new world out there. “Well, if that is the case, it’s time to leave the comfort zone”, Bernfeld tells us, “as you’re missing out on the money.” Bernfeld explained that in other regions (not The Netherlands) the public broadcasters can put material online for short periods, without ads, as ’catch-up rights’ but then after a short period, or when they start to apply ads to the films, the revenues must be shared with producers. This seemed not to be the case here. A debate also ensued about the new Ximon site in this regard….
Andreas Brosjo of Sony also presented from the major studio’s perspective – about the shifting windows and licensing patterns in film and TV. He also briefly mentioned indirectly related entities (Crackle.com – who licenses films for online exhibition, ad-supported) and Playstation gaming console services (who license films and channels for services on the console). He handles Nordic and Benelux markets in TV, pay TV and digital and showed how the patters overseas in USA and UK now are affecting and replicating in Europe and encouraged producers/distributors to balance the desired and rights requests of their traditional customers (pay TV, broadcast etc) with the multiple new entrants, platforms and new opportunities.
No one in the audience wants to miss out. Instead they plan to be back in September for the next session at the Binger.