Conor's Bandon Blog

Those of us who are watching much less broadcast TV and more time-shifted or downloaded programmes are starting to become very uncomfortable with the monthly Sky tax just to get some intermittent BBC2/Ch4 etc.

Media companies everywhere try to stop piracy and block those outside of their borders from watching programming online on sites like Hulu. This is a battle they cannot win.

The problem they have at the moment is licensing. If broadcast rights to House MD are sold to Channel 6 in Ireland then the licensor cannot allow Irish people to watch the same media for free (and Irish-ad free) on Hulu or similar as they’d be subverting their own customers.

There are thousands of production companies, studios, TV stations and distribution companies involved in this mess. The thought that one company could do all the deals necessary to create a global on-demand PAYG online site for all media to be downloaded seems an almost impossible dream.

Unless we start offering them money.

What if Pirate Bay (or Mininova or Isohunt) provided a scheme whereby every time someone downloads an episode of House or Celebrity Apprentice or Top Chef etc, they are given the option of paying 50c? Once a month, they tot up the totals for each show, cut some cheques and send them to the production companies to carve up however they see fit with their partners/customers.

There would be no deals here, no agreements, no pricing arrangements, no permission sought or given. They’d just get the cheque in the post.

At what point would all of the players be getting sufficient income from this source that they are forced to join the 21st Century and realise that this is one global market and media should go to those who want it, when they want it.

Just an idea.

You don’t need to be an economist to know that media companies are suffering hugely in this recession. Their reliance on advertising makes them incredibly sensitive to downturns.

When you have a radio show that addresses a focused engaged specific audience, you would think that it would be a gift both for the broadcaster and those advertising to that audience. Thus C103′s decision to axe David Young’s “West Cork Today” programme frankly boggles the mind.

Radio broadcast licences have been a goldmine for companies like UTV over the past few years. But at the first sign of a downturn, it looks like they take the short term view and run for the hills? With those licences come legally binding terms and conditions.  Perhaps the BCI would like to use this case as an example to Comreg on how a regulator should actually conduct itself.

Having said all of that, the idea of one company having the sole rights to broadcast to a particular niche or geography belongs in the 20th century. The internet makes a mockery of this partitioning. If C103 is  unwilling to meet its customers’ needs then the customer needs to take back control.

I’ll be honest, I rarely listen to “live” radio any more. I download podcasts and music in which I am interested and then listen whilst driving with them playing back to my Lidl car stereo. Everything from food to technology to politics. Many of them are actually radio shows, mainly BBC Radio 4 and 5. I’d happily pay for a daily or weekly roundup of local West Cork information that I could listen to when it suited me, not the broadcaster.

How many of David Young’s listeners would be willing to pay maybe €3 a month to subscribe to an internet version of his show (and other West Cork programming)? Both live-streamed and available for download to iPods, mobile phones or PCs? Of course traditional broadcast is the most efficient way to get to the maximum number of people but needs must when the devil vomits into your kettle (to quote Edmund Blackadder).

I’ve been saying it non-stop for two years; if your business is not online, you are heading for extinction. I don’t care whether you are a butcher, baker or artist, start selling online now. Too difficult or pricey? Check out these guys or these guys.

But more than “normal” business, the move of media online is accelerating all the time. Traditional newspapers across the US are going bust and the Voice group in Ireland couldn’t get traction. Of course it’s still hard to make money online as a media org, particularly with the downturn in advertising revenue. There is a great piece by Nic Brisbourne here on the problems with local advertising online. Hell, I’ve heard the Guardian loses £20m per year on their main site.

But if you can figure it out and can create multiple revenue streams then the opportunities are massive. Local becomes global. Your audience stretches from outside your door to every ex-pat on the planet.

This is the longest lead-in ever to the main point of this post – I’m absolutely thrilled to see the launch of Kilkenny Alive. It is Ireland’s first ever online-only regional newspaper. This is a big deal for local media here. With two fantastic journos as joint-editors and an eager readership looking for an alternative to the same old print warhorses, I think it’s going to be a major success story.

I am a bit of an early adopter for tech and I only buy maybe one newspaper a month. I get all my news online and by mobile. In fact, I think that the opportunity in mobile will eclipse that of “desktop online” in the next few years. The iPhone led the way, Google Android just drives the point home. The old Wap nonsense will fade into history and proper full access to online content on your mobile will be the norm.

I still think the original ireland.com portal model can work at a local level. The main media site in each town and region should the the destination site for anyone looking for any information about that area. The fact that the Bandon Opinion doesn’t have any web-site boggles the mind. The Southern Star has one but it still seems to be in old Unison mode.

With great sites, either of those could be the default home page for every person living in West Cork or interested in it. Every tourist who looks up West Cork should end up there booking accommodation, reading restaurant reviews, finding events, reading the news and watching videos of local games. (Revenue model idea – charge people a few euro to watching streaming video of hurling games internationally and rev-share with the local clubs). They should be the one-stop-shop for everything in the region. My hope is that Kilkenny Alive wants to be that site for the South East.

Well done to Sean, Jim and everyone in Kilkenny Alive, I look forward to getting all the latest from KK in my RSS reader.