• by Christopher M. Schroeder , August 3, 2004

When I want to understand anything about the future of broadband content, my first stop is with Discovery.com's chief Bill Allman. Bill is a pioneer in the interactive content. He founded U.S.News and World Report's interactive efforts in 1992, and over recent years has led the online strategy for magnificent brands such as the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, Discovery Health, Discovery Kids, and Discovery HD Theater.

CS: What are you thinking about as broadband penetration increasing rapidly?

BA: My primary thought is "Finally!" After all, it's not easy being a video content brand in a narrow-band world. Discovery is all about video. We've always had video on our site. But now that the ability for viewers to watch video online has reached critical mass, our content strategy can expand greatly, giving us richer content -- and giving advertisers a new way to reach viewers.

CS: You have incredible libraries of video content -- how much of your strategy for broadband is an extension of this?

BA: Most of the video we now have on our site is what we like to call "DVD-TV" content. That is, we shoot extra footage (a front row seat of the worlds scariest roller coasters, for instance), scour B-roll for bloopers and outtakes, ask our on-air talent to do "Director's Cut" voice overs. The idea is to give folks a behind-the-scenes, inside view of the programs and talent on our networks. It's great for introducing new viewers to our programming and great for converting those new viewers into strong, repeat-viewing communities. Our next step, of course, will be to delve into that vast library to create deeper offers, which may include subscription services for full-length programming and other content.

CS: Does "broadband content" mean new experiences - a la gaming -- or merely fatter pipe to distribute programming that we already know or love?

BA: We don't think of broadband as merely "click and view" video. The real promise of broadband is that video can be seamlessly integrated into a multimedia experience, whether it's gaming, building a pyramid "virtually" through flash, or getting a first-person look at wandering an ancient savannah. The ability to be able to click on video, see video within video, and have flash overlays, deeper content, etc., is what makes broadband so powerful.

CS: How do you pay for this? What is happening in "broadband" advertising? I'm seeing pressure to put TV's 30-second spots online, does that work?

BA: For a television company like Discovery, broadband opens a new prospect of cross-platform selling. The same spots that appear on TV, for instance, can also appear online in the same contextual environment, 24/7. Of course, it's not that simple. Some advertisers don't have online rights to their commercials; there is not that much inventory in 15 second spots -- which are perhaps a better fit for running with a two-minute clip, and you still have the infrastructural dilemma that online and on-air advertising is sometimes handled by different agencies for the same client. Still the promise of online commercials is huge, because for the first time, viewers can click through from a 15 second or 30 second into a 27-minute, long-form advertising content. Think of watching a short commercial about a car, and then clicking through to a full multimedia tour of the automobile. That's something you can't do on TV.

CS: Our broadband is a fraction of the weight and size of, say, Korea! What limits will that have and for how long on our shores?

BA: Broadband is being adopted here far more rapidly than anyone predicted. More important, while the installed base is still low, the amount of time broadband users are actually on the Internet, as a group, is now greater than that of narrow-band users. So most of the time spent on the Net is spent by people on broadband connections.

That said, one limitation is that content providers still have to provide for both broad and narrow band users. The result is that many sites don't look very different whether viewed by broadband or narrow-band connections; they just load more quickly. I recall the early days of the Web when content providers had a front page that said 'with graphics' and 'without graphics.' These days, we can sniff a connection automatically, and fish up broadband or narrow-band content; but that means creating two versions of content.

CS: Cell phones are beginning to down-load at speeds comparable to average U.S. DSL speeds. What are you thinking about if anything for hand-helds?

BA: We're in discussions with all the wireless carriers, and users can now watch the Discovery network feed on some phones, albeit at a fairly slow frame rate. However, this arena is moving ahead rapidly, and we've got big plans. Our working paradigm is to be platform neutral. We want to bring our brands to our viewers, wherever they are.

CS: So, what's keeping you up late at night?

BA: The elephant in the room in discussions about the next generation of interactive media is that, along with the new ways of getting broadband content -- whether it's broadband, wireless, PVRs or VOD -- there are bound to be new relationships with the customer. Who owns those relationships? Who has the rights to monetize that relationship via advertising or other commerce? How will those models change with interactivity? The established models for making money in media -- and there's still a lot of money being made the old fashioned way, mind you -- will eventually be eroded by the new ways. And that has the potential to change everything about our business.