If digital media is forecast to continue to beat the pants off of broadcast radio and TV for years to come, shouldn’t Facebook and YouTube fork over some money to content producers like … radio and TV stations?
It’s an interesting concept and one that’s getting serious play in Australia. RBR+TVBR Editor-in-Chief Adam R Jacobson shares his thoughts on the concept of “retransmission fee agreements” of the social kind in this exclusive commentary.
LAS VEGAS — That was the week that was. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent two days on Capitol Hill getting grilled by many a politician who likely never used Facebook, and is unaware of the difference between GUIs and gooey foods. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan is “retiring” at the end of his current term in the latest Republican Removal Machine act designed to save politicians from the embarrassment of a possible Donkey drubbing on November 6.
For radio and TV broadcast companies and their digital partners, the 103,000 or so attendees cramming the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center (the North Hall left plenty of room for marathon training) proved to be entertaining, informative and exhausting, with events as early as 7am and dinner events going well past 9pm.
What did we learn? The digital bullet train that’s faster and more efficient than the Las Vegas Monorail may be hitting some intermittent slowdowns, but it’s not poised to see a big attack from good ol’ Radio and TV anytime soon. Ad trends from the likes of Gordon Borrell, Jack Myers and Brian Wieser are what they are.
But, can broadcast TV and radio companies do something — anything — to help fortify the moat around their core business assets and ensure that they don’t wither away, like the newspaper?
Editor’s Note: WTH Los Angeles Times?! I read Wednesday’s Final Edition, a $2.75 newsrack purchase, and was appalled by how horrible it is compared to 15-20 years ago. What a mess …
A dinner conversation with two former R&R colleagues who I will only identify as “The Prince” and “Mr. Gradeplease” led us Down Under to Australia, where there was speculation all week that the nation’s biggest media companies were going to the Canberra federal government to force two of the GAFAN ad-dollar gobblers to pay to host their content.
Guess what? It happened Friday (4/13) with what The Sydney Morning Herald dubs “a flurry of official submissions to a world-first investigation into the digital giants” expected to arrive at The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission next week.
Television networks and radio broadcasting companies are highly involved.
Call it “carriage fees” for digital publishers. Call it crazy. Call it “traditional media” stepping up and putting a stop to the distribution of their content while YouTube and Facebook sell their local advertising against it.
NewsMediaWorks CEO Peter Miller is making a submission to the Aussie regulatory body on Tuesday, and Miller hopes the act will “shine a bright light on the uneven playing field” created by the digital platforms and their algorithms. “We’re in a surreal marketplace where Facebook and Google profit tremendously from copyrighted content that they don’t pay for,” he told SMH.
Broadcast TV giant Nine Entertainment Co. CEO Hugh Marks recently said advertisers are turning away from social media and back to traditional television.
Yeah, we’ve heard similar chatter in the States. But, the idea of carriage fees for digital publishers hasn’t been said from Chief Radio Cheerleader and San Diego’s No. 1 Fan, David Field. It was likely not on the mind of TVB Chairman and Nexstar founder and President/CEO Perry Sook when we had a random meet-up in the Encore Tower Suites elevator on Wednesday afternoon.
But News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson has called Facebook and Google “wastelands” when you subtract the content provided to these digital Goliaths by media groups.
It’s true: Your radio and/or TV station, even with the ever-changing algorithms which are leading us to spend less time with Facebook, is still a dominant provider of content to Facebook. So, why shouldn’t radio and TV instill carriage fees?
Retransmission fees are on the rise and cable TV isn’t happy. It’s no secret that broadcast TV companies are combating sinking ad revenues by offsetting the losses with enormous percentage jumps in the fees that they seek from MVPDs making even more money from carrying their content. So, why shouldn’t radio and TV do the same to the GAFANs?
Do it. Be bold. You have nothing to lose, radio and TV, except more ad dollars going to unregulated digital giants that would only be regulated by Capitol Hill grey suits who may enjoy a Raucous Caucus from Charlie Palmer Steak but are utterly clueless about the Money Moochers from Menlo Park and Spot Stealer of San Bruno.
