The complete local information center - any media, any time
Peter A. PETERSEN (DK) Managing Director -- Aalborg TVR group (Aalborg)
What is the role of local media in a world where the global village is old news and the agenda is multimedia. Peter A. Petersen has for years fought for the idea of the complete local information centre, and has built up a multimedia house with 200 employees.
Behind it lies the vision of local media as the individual citizen’s gateway to information.
Hear about this vision, and how it develops in the ongoing explosion with still greater bandwith and mobile internet, new combinations of media forms and terminals and a society where information is everywhere in the air we breathe.
The "Neapolis" project
Joan C. LLUCH (ES) Manager -- Canal Blau Informació (Vilanova La Geltrù)
Local television has already become a pilot test of the Neapolis project. As far as content is concerned, television has become a specialised channel in local news and news from the surroundings. This specialisation will allow it, in a not too distant future, to be a permanent local news service.
In other words, a permanent local news provider. And this is done using digital systems, distributing the information through different forms : television, radio, Internet. They have, therefore, become digital journalists.
The fact that local television is already using these processes opens the door to possible future evolutions in this field. Nothing is rare in the digital systems ; advanced technologies can, therefore, be used to distribute audio-visual services and other content to the citizens, individually or collectively.
For this reason, if it is done through cable, terrestrial, digital, UMTS, or Internet (webcasting), different channels can be broadcast at a low cost with a high social profitability ; information channels, local sports, formation, etc.
Local pluralism: Survival of the fittest? Could regional coproduction & networking be the answer?
Charles XUEREB (MT) Manager -- Multimedia Education & Broadcasting Centre (Sliema)
-In the nineties Europe bloomed in local pluralism
-Standards were initially lowered because of demand higher than supply
-The audiences were not prepared and in ten years of fragmented broadcasts from a number of sources (big stations, small stations, networks and satellites), most audiences ended up confused and not knowing what they wanted (vide Big Brother as an example of «uncultured» but successful tv)
-In time, the better programmes/channels started dictating audiences. Farmed-out productions were creating new independent broadcasting moguls cutting the edge over better equipped channels. Is theirs a long story of success or a medium one until the better times roll?
-Audience surveys are carried out to decipher the People’s Choice
-Are they correct? Manipulated by commercial interests? How could one know what viewers want to watch? Is the consumer targeted well ? What does she/he want?
-One needs to keep on inventing and re-inventing the product and strive to create effective synergies between content and commerce.
-Could one strive to get non-politically motivated broadcasting tenacity?
-When could one achieve successful results? Definitely not overnight.
-What could long-term plans be like? Who could be the most successful players? What type of productions could provide the successful recipe to play on a level-field with giant producers/channels?
Success without Newspapers?!
Günter HEUBERGER (CH) Manager -- Radio Top / Tele Top
The Top-Group is growing since 1984 in small steps to the 4th place in Radio in Switzerland. The TV-Business in Switzerland is much harder because of the strong foreign programms, which have no language-barrier.
The key factors of success for the Top-Group are
- Vision
- Attractive format
- Best people in house approach
- Technology driven
- Partnerships
- Open minded, faster, tougher
In Switzerland most Radio- and TV-stations are in the hand of newspapers. Radio Top and Tele Top are independent from any media groups. We think that we can act faster when we have no newspapers as strategic shareholders. It's clear that this way is for us tougher, but in the long run we will have more success.