followthemedia.com a knowledge base for media professionals

followthemedia.com - a knowledge base for media professionals

Search the site

Search’s end – bah-dah-bing! --- Michael Hedges June 1, 2009
The fastest growing slice of worldwide advertising is search advertising. As wireless broadband expands projections for the mobile ad market – search traffic being significant – cause that Pavlovian response from the ad people. One challenge remains; getting eyes to the right place at the right time.

Giving mobile TV another shove --- Michael Hedges December 14, 2008
Mobile TV is another brilliant idea conceived at the cash register banking on customers with holes in their pockets. It has been in that pipeline of great uses for the digital dividend for as long as telecom regulators discovered free money selling the digital dividend. Telecoms, reluctantly, are starting to back away.

In Switzerland, Pay For Broadband, Own A Mobile Phone That Receives TV Then Pay A TV License Fee, Too --- Philip M. Stone July 15, 2008
Switzerland already has one of the world’s highest, if not the highest, TV and radio annual license fee – a total of 462 Swiss Francs ($454, €285, £228) divided into quarterly payments -- and about 95% of households pay the TV fee and 90% pay the radio fee, the money going to support the country’s public broadcasting system (TV is allowed advertising revenues in addition, radio is not). But are there those who slip through the net by using something other than a TV or radio? The regulators think so.

Pay to Play --- Michael Hedges May 21, 2008
Technology developer Qualcomm bought a respectable chunk of UK radio frequency spectrum with a plan. The price was reasonably cheap and the possibilities are, perhaps, endless. All new media needs spectrum, somehow, and this could be an interesting experiment.

Leading German broadcaster creates links --- Michael Hedges May 1, 2008
The rise of the internet and new media has sent broadcasters on a search for taking these new tools and creating new listener interest. Leading German broadcaster Radio Hamburg has developed Web programming for specialized music.

Mobile TV in a bit of a turmoil --- Michael Hedges April 24, 2008
A funny thing happened to mobile TV on the way to the marketplace. While experts still believe it will bring in € billions…someday…Europe and North America will need to look to Asia. It’s another media trend moving East to West

Standards, standards, everywhere; but nothing’s on mobile TV --- Michael Hedges March 20, 2008
Forecasters, not just at Bear Sterns, anointed mobile TV the ‘next big thing’ sometime around the turn of the century. Each year since the high hopes for big money dwindle. Now mobile TV will be ‘interesting in some markets.’

The Cup of Nations opens. It’s pay to play (or watch or listen) every day --- Michael Hedges January 22, 2008
For broadcasters and telecoms to ad agencies and sponsors, sport is, again, the best hope for a brighter (financial) day. Africa’s Cup of Nations football tournament opened this past weekend to an expected audience of one billion. By years’ end sports programming will enrich many; certainly those who place the right bet.

Ice cream and the small(est) screen --- Michael Hedges December 3, 2007
Bandwidth secured, standards endorsed, investors salivating mobile TV is certain to be the next small thing. But small things can prove effective change agents. It may not be exactly what television needs, but it’s close.

Don’t Touch That Dial --- Michael Hedges October 25, 2007
Broadcasters have long cast a wary eye toward the digital realm. Even with grudging acceptance that ‘the world is going digital’ the unease is endemic. And the answers from consumers only reinforce every digital fear.

Consolidate and operate, back again on media managers’ dance card --- Michael Hedges September 17, 2007
Ear-splitting, multi-billion euro media deals will likely become quite rare over the next 18 months. A few are in the pipe-line, now slowed to a crawl as lenders and private equity managers, literally and figuratively, take stock. Inside the media sector the cycle is shifting from the financial to the strategic.

Digital milestones and millstones --- Michael Hedges September 3, 2007
As summer began digital broadcasting passed a significant milestone. The UK’s last analogue FM license was issued in May. When the license for GCap’s XFM in South Wales expires in 2019 digital radio broadcasting in the UK will be the dominant broadcast platform.

Broadcasters Network for Solutions --- Michael Hedges - May 29, 2007
Networking is the essence of Brussels. As the seat of the European Commission (EC) and home to hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGO) and associations seeking to impact European and world-wide policies, Brussels is seen as the place to debate.

Mobile TV - Slow Finding Customers – Gets Subsidies --- Michael Hedges - May 14, 2007
Ask any media crystal gazer to name the next big thing and there is one, resounding answer: Mobile TV. People viewing something on that mobile phone’s tiny screen is the center-piece of new media thinking, or dreaming, or wishing, or hoping. Sadly, though, people are just not clamoring to help cellcos (mobile telephone providers) increase those billable seconds. The solution, of course, is government subsidies.

Peering Into Rule Makers Mirror On The Wall Media Industries See Ugly, Step-Sisters --- Michael Hedges - March 21, 2007
Media industry groups are up in arms over the encroaching future. It’s bad enough that media consumers have been enticed by every digital evil. Now – horror of horrors – the rule makers won’t stop reality.

The Mobile Industry Heralds Mobile TV As The Next Huge Money-Maker Even Though Surveys Indicate Its Going To Be A Hard Sale, And Now The Experience Of The UK's Virgin Mobile Bears That Research Out --- Philip M. Stone January 19, 2007
Maybe Virgin Mobile didn't go about it the right way it could only offer one expensive mobile model that receives its DAB Digital Radio signals and customers seem to think it's a bit old-fashioned and clunky -- but whatever the reason its mobile TV platform launched last October with none other than Pamela Anderson leading the £2.5 million ($5 million, €3.97 million) pitch has done miserably.

Mobile TV To Hit Mass Global Viewers in 2008 Says An Ericsson executive, But A New Survey Indicates That There Is A Weakening Interest In New Mobile Technologies With Pricing The Main Culprit --- Philip Stone November 26, 2006
An Ericsson executive boasted last week that about one-third of the world’s mobile phone users could be watching TV on their handsets within two years, but he may not have read a new study that indicates a weakening customer interest in new mobile technologies because of cost. If mobile vendors want customers to use their phones for more than just talk then they need to embrace low-cost fixed-price plans.

Germany’s Digital Free-For-All – Nothing Will Be Free --- Michael Hedges October 23, 2006
Mobile media is all the rage. Telecoms and hand-set makers say it’s the future, a pay-to-play future. Even Germany’s conservative publishers are throwing their weight around. It could be another one-way trip, say German broadcasters, with a wink and a nod: remember the 300 million receivers already in households.

Is There A Future for Mobile TV? Maybe with DVB-H If The Phones Are Cheap Enough, But It Doesn’t Look Good For 3G --- Philip Stone July 31, 2006
No doubt the fact that Italy won the World Cup had a lot to do with it, but 3 Italia’s DVB-H Mobile TV service (digital over the air via TV transmitters) launched for the tournament’s start attracted 111,000 customers and the company expects 500,000 by year-end.

Regulators Work Together For Digital Solutions --- Michael Hedges - April 3, 2006
Nine European media regulators are beginning an ambitious project to coordinate digital strategies. Working in four distinct geographic “sub-projects,” German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian authorities are meeting regularly to “build a new architecture of inter-working media services by inter-working infrastructures of broadcasting and telecommunications for the media needs of a mobile Information society,” explained Dr. Peter Kettner, DMB Project Manager with Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM), Germany.

With More than 2 Billion Mobile Phone Users in the World Of Which 236 Million Use 3G, Can Advertisers Be Very Far Behind? --- Philip M. Stone - March 30, 2006
It’s already well understood that advertising money is flowing away from traditional media to more unconventional channels, and a survey by eMarketeer points out that the two tactics that advertisers want to experiment with this year over any other are video and the mobile phone.

CeBIT Gizmo-fest: Search for the Next Big – or Small – Thing --- Michael Hedges March 13, 2006
Five long years after the bubble burst the consumer technology sector is regaining its confidence and CeBIT is the place to show and glow. The Hannover, Germany trade show has also regained its reputation as the world’s largest celebration of consumer technology. Beyond tantalizing every geek impulse with Origami (Microsoft), 8 megabytes storage (Samsung) and cellphones preloaded with Skype (BenQ) it is a technology summit where the digital world assesses its progress and plots its future.

Digital Realists Organize --- Michael Hedges March 1, 2006
Digital uptake in Europe has been uneven if not fitful. Exceptional in many ways, Switzerland’s digital development mirrors that of the rest of continental Europe: a lack of convergence. Digital broadcasting stakeholders convened Forum Digital Radio in Lucerne, Switzerland to bring together broadcasters, receiver manufacturers and regulators

What Is So Delicious About What Silvio Berlusconi Does Is That He Is So Blatant, So “In Your Face”. He Knows It. The Italians Know It. And He Gets Away With It. --- Philip M. Stone - January 29, 2006
If you’re prime minister of Italy facing a general election in April, and you’re behind in the polls you’d want to get as much positive television exposure as possible in the weeks leading up to the election. Right? Especially if you control one way or the other some 90% of Italian television! But you know that once Parliament is dissolved there are very tough rules in Italy equalizing television exposure time for candidates, and banning political adverts. So what do you do?

Will We Use Our Mobile Phones To Watch Enough Television To Make It A Viable Financial Proposition? Various UK trials and Tests Indicates the Answer is Yes, No, and Maybe. --- Philip Stone January 19, 2006
Since November Sky Television has provided more than 5 million live-TV streams in its Vodaphone 3G service, so there certainly is an interest in using mobile phones to watch some television. But in a just concluded trial by BT with Virgin Mobile users said they preferred listening to digital radio on their phones than watching TV and they were not wiling to pay as much as operators wanted. And in yet another trial, this one by O2, 78% of users said they would buy a TV service.

In What Appears To Be A Master Stroke, Hutchinson Whampoa Buys Italy’s Canale 7 National TV Broadcaster And Thus Its Own DVB-H Mobile TV Platform --- Philip M. Stone December 1, 2005
As a regional broadcaster Canale 7 hardly showed on the ratings scene, out powered by multi-channel programming from state broadcaster RAI and from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s family-run Mediaset empire. But there was a hidden attribute to Canale 7 – it owned a national digital terrestrial TV license – exactly what a mobile telephone operator could do with as its plans introduction of digital video broadcast -- handheld (DVD-H) to mobile phones via signals from television transmitters.

Before Long the UKs TV Magazines Will Need to List Broadband TV Programming From Several Vendors, But There Will Be No Schedules – Welcome to Watch What You Like When You Want --- Philip M. Stone November 3, 2005
BT, the largest British telephone company, is teaming with Philips and Microsoft, to turn itself also into a television company next year offering 30 digital terrestrial channels via aerial reception plus a video on demand library and a “catch-up” service covering the past seven days delivered via broadband. Not to be outdone, satellite broadcaster BSkyB is paying £211 million for broadband supplier Easynet that puts the company, 37.2% owned by News Corporation, into the telecom and broadband business.

Commercial Broadcasters Still Hesitate on Digital Strategy --- Michael Hedges October 1, 2005
A decade after the unveiling of digital radio technologies, European commercial radio broadcasters continue to hesitate. There are exceptions, notable, but few.

Newspapers Take Advantage of Digital Revolution --- Philip Stone June 6, 2005
Back in 1971 Intel developed its first memory chip – it stored all of 128 letters. Today a Samsung 8-gigabyte memory card can store one million newspaper pages – equivalent to about 90 years of a daily newspaper. And such changes in the semiconductor industry are only the tip of that iceberg that will help newspapers to continue reaching the masses.

Digital Legislating --- Michael Hedges April 28, 2005
Governments are attacking the digital media problem and warming, again, to analogue shut-off dates for radio.

DRM the Buzzword at CeBIT 2005 --- Michael Hedges March 20, 2005
No, not that DRM. Digital rights management means more APRU

Spectrum Freed! No Injuries Reported! --- Michael Hedges February 28, 2005

Digital radio for toi et moi --- Michael Hedges May 29, 2009 (Follow on Twitter)
Dismal economics notwithstanding, digital radio broadcasting keeps edging forward. Listeners are firmly attached to their iPhones and broadcasters need to keep them happy. How to get from here to there is a weighty question. But, no fear, there’s always a step backward.

Digital television: complicated --- Michael Hedges April 30, 2009 Follow on Twitter
The switchover from analogue to digital television is well under way. Well, it’s mostly well under way. Complications, from nasty new economics and tattered business models to old-fashioned greed and corruption, keep holding up progress.

So Many Questions, So Little Time --- Michael Hedges April 29, 2013 - Follow on Twitter
Among physicists there is a natural attraction to grand unifying theory. In the public sphere, media policies notably, the same motivation endures. Connecting everything is good because the alternative, after all, is frightening. Different, though, are strings attached.