Niche News ... Outtakes No Longer

There's great debate, in the small blogosphere circle, about 'niche news'. That's important local community events and issues that don't make the front page of the daily paper, or the six o'clock television news.

In long treatise Bob Cauthron offers why 'big media' doesn't get it, yet. Interestingly, he recognizes Morris Communications as big media that gets it! We did that awhile back.


For all players in this new media world, this is a bench mark setting group. The content is relevant, focused on the market, well presented. The discussion is open and bi-directional. There is enterprise.

Five Takes Europe

Five Takes Europe is in production. So far it's a vlog, personal diaries of what the crew is doing as opposed to a preview of what the broadcast is discovering. I'm not engaged.



I have't seen anything about about the cities they are visiting. There is little about the the real time laboratory of "on the fly production" . The crews are using Sony cameras and Apple laptops. There are always conflicts between creative ambition and technology limitation, give me a behind the scens look at what is happening.

For the moment it seems fundamental issues are missing. What's the goal? What's the plan How's the plan working? Tell me a story. Show me the adventure. Engage me. Give me a reason to watch the show or tune in the vlog.

Cannibalization or Pardigm Shift

BBC is talking on the brave new media world with an appropriate dose of courage. It just ' scooped itself. Cannibalized, one could say by streaming its comedy series Mighty Boosh. This is the first in a series of BBC new media experiments.

It has major implications for local broadcasters willing to dabble in new media.They'll need to jettison the 'scoop' mentality, the outdated notion that first is where the value is.

First is long gone by the time the 6 O'clock news hits the air. And they'll need to ramp up the production from what they're doing now What's important is to engage the audience. This is hardly an example.

Streaming 6 O'clock stories ahead of scheduled broadcast has several interesting possibilities. On the business side another service to sell. It's a practice that takes advantage of current technologies. By doing so develops skills. It creates a real time laboratory to gleam what new services can emerge. It's risky though. Media companies would need to alter the current command and control mindset. Stay tuned.

SEE.. CAPTURE.. FILE IT

CNN wants your video joining a big media trend to capitalize on news 'they' can't get without you.



Think local, your own neighborhood. Enlighten mass media news companies are advising how to reach them.

Speaking of capitalization, Scoopt could be a way for you to be compensated for your efforts.

"BAM"!... Vloggiing Bumps Up Several Notches

Vlogging, the niche grass roots video production phenomenon, is about to explode. There's a confluence of technology and enterprise. One of the enterprises is Current TV. It launches August 1, on US cable television, with a projected reach of 20 million homes. That's sufficient mass to create ' niche sponsor' interest. Cheap video production tools and low cost global program distribution are the technologies driving the trend.

From an enterprise perspective what's important is the trend towards 'sponsorship'. Remember ZANE GREY Theatre, likely not. It was the 1950's Television movie of the week. In those nascent days sponsors took a stake in the enterprise. Got some inventory in return. Association, exclusivity was the major benefit.

Media 'sponsorship' is a marriage of residual value, association and economic value, revenue. Revenue pays the bills. Association creates exclusivity, the media holy grail. The tricky part is 'selling' the value proposition. In start up, there aren't any eyeballs. Mark Burnett built reality TV through a sponsorship model. Hard to believe, Survivor, the challenge event, was a tough sell. Television networks passed on his event. In the beginning Burnett didn't have any numbers. He sure got some. Survivor 4 pre-sold over $100 million in sponsorship, before Burnett had a location.

New media enterprises, like Current TV, are reigniting the sponsorship business model, in digital television. They're 'capitalizing' low cost, in some cases, free technology that is creating new value propositions. Interactivity is one . Low cost global program distribution, via Internet, is another. Together they create the niche for programming that would not see the light of day in an advertising business model.

At Current advertisers sign up for 15-month periods, during which they sponsor a particular content block within each hour's telecast. They will also get to air an up to three-minute ad message at some point within each hour. The network will have sold about 70 percent of its available inventory by the time it airs, ....

BAM, as Emeril would say, vlogging just went planetary. Current and others, as they emerge, are a ground floor opportunity for producers and sponsors.The cost of getting in is low, better value for the sponsor. There's more airtime to fill than content to fill it. The imbalance will last for 12 months, or so. It happens every time a new television service is launched. This time it's different. Niche television programming is cheap to produce, and easy to distribute. Current's 20 million US cable TV households could morph ten times, when the programming is distributed over the net. Those numbers will create sponsorship. The best part is you're invited on two fronts to create content and to interact with it.

SHOW ME

Today BBC and SKY TV are looking for pictures from the latest London assault. That's a key endorsement of the value of 'independent' news gathering. Even the cops are asking for your video



Breaking away from the news of the day, for a little perspective. There is a big boon coming for short form video producers.

Wired reports Yahoo Google MSN looking for video content.

Key questions; what are they looking for? What is relevant? What are they paying? Perhaps better, what is the enterprise here? Not sure anyone knows at the moment.

However, if vloggers were looking for platform, it's emerging. Content is king again and video its' queen!


The biggest winner could be Apple computer.


Not so much for rumored video Ipod but for it's video editing suite of software.

Saturday's debut of "Five Takes Europe" could be one of those tipping points for 'independent content producers' that Maclom Gladwell writes about. The key point is you're invited to participate.

TV to GO

Internet TV is on. The big guys are in. First it was Scripps back in May with major commitment to broadband. This week CBS News and PPS morphed to the net.

That’s good. Broadcaster presence will jack up ‘program’ values. You’ll see a dramatic improvement in broadband program quality. It will be technically rigorous and contextually relevant.

“… CBSNews.com is designed to capture an audience that is increasingly looking for news and information at all times of the day, not just during scheduled periods, and using the internet for that purpose," president of CBS Digital Media Larry Kramer said.

Ok, now we can get it all the time, everywhere, fine. That’s still top down, a directive, not a discussion.

The challenge for Nerd TV and the rest is how they adjust the command and control broadcast culture.Will the viewer be invited? Will Mr Cringley broadcast my Podcast, my vlog of his show? Will he link to it? Just like I did here?

So far Canadian Broadcasters are a little slow off the mark. Gosh one would think that Rogers with Sportsnet and CTV with TSN would be creating broadband programming to reinvigorate the hockey fan. Any sponsors out there willing to consider to some leading edge approaches. We’ve got some ideas. There’s lots of room to comment below.

Vloggers Develop Skills

We've suggested here to some consternation Vlogging will remain a niche enterprise, until it adopts presentation standards. Well here's the first step a videography course for vloggers. Next will be an editing course.



This will aid technical presentation and that's good. Next will come the presentation of relevant content. Material that is meaningful for the intended audience. If mass media companies were truly interested in collaboration, more seminars would be forthcoming in short order.

Point of View Journalism

"Embedded Reporter" is the term of today. That's you. Especially if you have a digital camera, or a digital cell phone. You are the news maker this week.

The BBC's Internet site had a prominent posting to readers saying, ''We want your pictures.'' Below it was ''Eyewitness Accounts,'' a link to bombing pictures sent in by readers.

Seventy five percent of the cell phones sold by Motorola are equipped with digital cameras. The 'news gathering and distribution business is now open source. Low cost acquisition technology combined with 'free' interent distribution and media storage libraries Flickr, for still photos and OurMedia for video, provide a previosuly unimagined digital publishing capacity.

The command and control news filter of major media companies is shrinking,morphing to a collaboration amongst disparate groups.Those seeking to be first to generate ratings and profits. Those whose only motive is to share. Technology abets each self interest. It turns so called "amateur" digital photography and videography from a social benefit to economic value. Witness the plethora of 'embedded journalist' front page photos on the world's newspapers from London this week. Call it 'point of view' journalism.

EYE WITNESS CELL PHONE

Most of the images still and moving that you saw from London yesterday came from citizens victims and witnesses of the bombings. They moved on the Internet before broadcast television could respond and mass its resources.
Broadcasters are now dependent on citizen participation in the news gathering and distribution process. In event reportage there is no 'scoop' to be had.

There isn't a broadcaster on the planet that can be first any more. They can't be and aren't everywhere, though they'd like you to believe that.

Meet Bigdaddymerk today's face of event journalism. Tomorrow a new face.

The news business is morphing from command,control, and celebrity to an assembly of citizen participation. For the moment it is confined to visual reportage. However it won't take long to move beyond that to analysis.

As broadcasters scrambled to offer you something, they resorted to the familiar. the trite sound bite Without dissent they asserted and presented responsibility for the bombings, but offered no evidence, provided no attribution for the claims they made.

They made no connection between underlying current event issue that dominated the preceding 48 hours, world, primarily African poverty. People were murdered in London yesterday, as retribution, as misguided as it is, for actions of the governments they elect,and the actions those governments take.

There is great potential for social benefit in technology enabled citizen journalists. "They" are now the first line reporters. The professionals can move it up a notch, provide us with insight and analysis by connecting seemingly disparate dots.

Biogen Intersitial