Multicast. Multiplatform. Multiformat. As attendees at the 2008 NAB Show learned, media is undergoing a major transition, which affects both the nature of the business and the technologies we use to reach consumers.

This is also going to be an important focus for BCFM’s 48^th Annual Conference—“Your World. Your Connection.”—set for May 13-15 at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas. Our conference also serves as the annual event for our BCCA (Broadcast Cable Credit Association) subsidiary. In addition, for the second year, the Media Industry Tax Group will be meeting in conjunction with us. 

Bringing together the professionals served by these organizations allows us to take what we are learning about new technology and consumer adoption to explore how these developments affect our business models and create new opportunities.

The analysis and idea sharing will continue into the following week, at the Cable Show, where BCFM will be contributing a marketing ROI panel called, “Precision Decision: Marketing in the Modern Media Milieu.”

Hyperlocal Television

As evidenced by both the vendors and the panels at NAB, our conference’s look at local television’s foray into the World Wide Web is timely. Several sessions at NAB focused on examples of how stations are extending their brands—and their ad sales—online. BCFM sessions will build upon them, homing in on the financial impact and opportunity each represents. 

As Bob Pittman told attendees at the NAB Show’s radio luncheon, broadcasters have a two-fold advantage for remaining successful in their markets. They have the combined strength of their established audience base and the capability to create destinations that attract loyal audiences.

With that in mind, television finance professionals know that following the money means capitalizing on their stations’ leadership positions in the local media market in order to build strong brands across the on-demand, online and mobile content distribution platforms. As the market trends indicate, new media platforms are luring ad dollars away from traditional silos such as print and broadcasting.

One of the examples of a TV station that has developed a multiplatform strategy is KING5.com, the local Web site for Belo’s KING Seattle that delivers hyper-local content to its viewers.

BCFM conference panelist, Cory Bergman, the director of digital media at KING and NorthWest Cable News, is charged with overseeing online and mobile content and business development at Belo’s Seattle operations.

KING5.com is the most-visited TV site in Seattle, and it won the national Edward R. Murrow award for overall excellence in 2007. Formerly an award-winning, executive producer at KING and a coordinating producer for NBC News, Cory is editor of Lost Remote (www.lostremote.com), one of the first blogs on the Web, which he founded back in 1999 to stimulate the involvement of major media companies in the Internet.

Cory’s experiences in traditional and new media newsrooms will be helpful to our attendees in determining the best way for organizing and managing their online ventures.

Multicasting and video on demand are also getting more recognition for their potential to extend local news and station brands across platforms.

From 24-hour local news channels to programming segments inside a national service, like NBC’s WeatherPlus or CNN Headline News, there are a number of stations that have been in the space long enough to provide us with a few lessons from their pioneering exploits that can help the next group to find an easier pathway to profitable results.

As an AP story in the Wall Street Journal (“Kids, Thugs, Dogs, Cats Drafted Into TV Battle”) recently noted, newer entrants to the local video marketplace, such as Verizon, are developing their own original, hyperlocal, human-interest TV programming in order to set themselves apart from their competitors.

Shows like Push-Pause on Fios follow the early examples of community news organizations like Cablevision’s News12, Time Warner Cable’s NY1 and Comcast’s CN8, which proved to be very effective differentiators from other multichannel video competitors like DBS.

Making Money in New Media

Finance professionals are kindred spirits with natives from the “Show Me” state and characters like Cuba Gooding’s Rod Tidwell, who popularized the saying “Show me the money.” Web sites like YouTube, which according to comScore accounted for one-third of the estimated 10 billion views of online video in February, up from 15 percent last year, and sites that are offering hyperlocal content are creating audiences that can attract advertisers. But finance professionals want to see the dollars and cents that will appear on both sides of the general ledger. They want to know what kind of predictable revenue these new businesses will attract and the direct and indirect costs involved in building and operating these new media destinations. 

With that in mind, we’ve organized several sessions that will take an in-depth look at the operational risks associated with digital content businesses. 

One session will explore advertising models and how content has made successful and unsuccessful jumps to new platforms, such as YouTube, iTunes, VOD and mobile. Another will explore monetizing online assets and online audiences through effective creative elements for Internet streaming. These elements include audience measurement, audience growth, systems for reporting obligations, ad insertion and ad impression measurement and will be relevant for all media companies that are streaming content, including print and radio. 

Of course, you can’t say the words “streaming,” and “reporting obligations” without thinking about music licensing requirements. We’ll have experts from the legal and music community on hand to talk about music licensing in the digital age and other legal issues affecting online businesses.

Brick and Mortar Considerations

No matter how virtual our media become, we still face plenty of brick and mortar considerations in managing these new businesses. And how can you be at any gathering these days that doesn’t involve talking about real estate?

We’ll combine those two issues with an examination of creative real estate financing deals that are attracting interest from media companies. One example of a new approach toward the old challenge of property expenses is the role of sale/leaseback options for commercial real estate. 

By selling the property where a business in located and then leasing the facility back from the new owner, companies can tap into a substantial source of cash for retiring debt, investing in its new media businesses or other purposes.

There can also be favorable tax deductions that the seller/lessee can enjoy over the life of the agreement. Experts from the Studley Group, which has managed a number of sale/leaseback agreements for media companies, will walk our attendees through the all-important details that can make this an attractive option.   

Customers Reign Over Both Content and Technology

As KING’s Cory Bergman noted, the expression “content is king” has to give some allegiance to the technology that enables it. Whether you believe Marshall McLuhan said the “medium is the message” or “the medium is the massage,” there’s no mistaking that technology is affecting content. What, when, where, why and how we distribute content is all changing. But driving all of these changes is the who: the markets that we exist to serve. And as the retailers whose ads support our businesses have always decreed, it’s the customer whose decisions rule us all. 

We may use terms like ratings point or RPU to talk about them, but the consumer’s ability to force any business plan into submission is never in doubt. I look forward to seeing you in Dallas as we explore how to serve the kings and queens who ultimately reign over the success of our companies and our industry.

More information about the sessions we have planned for our conference is available at www.bcfm.com.

Mary Collins is the president and CEO of the Broadcast Cable Financial Management Association, a professional society for addressing the diverse needs of financial and business professionals in the broadcast, cable, and electronic media industries. Her column appears here every other Friday.