New model maps content supply chain to today’s creative, technical and business processes
IABM, the international trade association for suppliers of broadcast and media technology, announced this week that it has introduced a new industry model – The BaM™ Content Chain: from Creator to Consumer. It is designed to model the new structure of the broadcast and media industry and provide a flexible, extensible model to accommodate the fast-changing business environment. The BaM™ Content Chain will thus prove invaluable to technology buyers, users and vendors alike to adopt the most creative and efficient operational processes and choose the best tools and technology.
As the ultimate source of all revenues for everyone involved in the content chain, The BaM™ Content Chain places the consumer at the heart of this new industry model. It is structured around a common understanding of the creative, technical and business processes from creation to consumption – and the technology employed at every step, whether software, hardware, cloud or managed service.
This approach makes The BaM™ Content Chain equally valid for media, broadcast and content businesses of any scale as well as technology vendors. It also provides an up-to-date picture of the structure of the broadcast and media industry today – solid foundations for understanding, analysis and decision making.
By mapping to the creative and business activities carried out between camera and consumer, The BaM™ Content Chain gives a complete, 360-degree model of the industry. It tracks all the steps between content being created, through production and post-production to management, publishing & distribution to monetization. All these steps are supported by three common pillars – connect, store and support, through which processes flow at all stages of the content chain.
The BaM™ Content Chain serves four primary economic functions:
· Building a common understanding of the creative, technical and economic activities addressed by the industry. This enables changes to be tracked and understood
· Underpinning the valuation of the addressable market for different types of technology products and services – now and into the future. It looks at this from both ends – spending by technology buyers, and revenues of vendors
· Aiding discovery of potential solutions/vendors by prospective buyers, making it clear who sells what, and which products fit which niche
· Creating a blueprint for building a modern content supply chain – optimizing workflows and operations to deliver content from creator to consumer efficiently across multiple formats and platforms
The BaM™ Content Chain: from Creator to Consumer, will underpin IABM’s scope of activities and business intelligence services, and enable easier discovery of vendors by buyers. It is built around the following creative, technical and business processes:
Create
Create covers the process of original acquisition or creation of raw content – live (“real-time”) or recorded, in a studio or in the field and the technology that enables this process. While this naturally includes distinct products such as cameras and accessories, lighting and audio recorders, it also encompasses UGC and social media. Services such as OB/remote trucks also come into the Create link. While these currently overlap into the Produce link, with the growing trend towards remote production using IP, OBs/Remotes will increasingly be fully described within Create.
Produce
Produce encompasses the production process (real-time/live) and post-production (file-based) to create a finished piece of content. The enabling technology that supports Produce includes graphics, audio production, video production and services, production and post-production software – including film transfer, editing, audio post, finishing, VFX and graphics and services.
Manage
Manage defines the aggregation, preparation and management of completed content items ready for distribution. This includes content preparation and services, content and workflow management and orchestration, metadata, and operational analytics – everything from ingest and QC to transcoding; the process of readying content for delivery to the end-user customer.
Publish
Publish covers an ever-growing field as viewing and listening choices continue to expand. It is defined as the playout or publication of content ready for consumers, and its subsequent distribution to reach consumers. Enabling technology for Publish includes linear playout systems, linear playout services, non-linear publishing systems, non-linear publishing services, projectors, large LED screens, protection & encryption, linear distribution & encryption, cable, IPTV, satellite, terrestrial distribution and internet distribution.
Monetize
For end-users, monetization is the reason they are in business, and the Monetize process defines the activities that support this. It covers the business activities that support the creation, acquisition and generation of sales/advertising revenue of content, including rights management, broadcast management, advertising systems, subscription & CRM systems and data analytics.
Consume
The final link in the content chain – and the force that ultimately powers it – Consume defines all the touchpoints with the end-consumer of the content. Examples include a consumer-facing app that makes content recommendations and captures consumer data.
The three common pillars that enable and support the interaction through and between the five creative, technical and business processes of The BaM™ Content Chain: from Creator to Consumer, are:
Connect
Connect defines the infrastructure, connectivity and bandwidth used to move content within and between facilities. This includes intra-facility connectivity, inter-facility connectivity, video interfacing & conversion, audio interfacing & conversion and file & object delivery.
Store
Every process in the chain also needs access to storage, whether it’s raw content, work-in-progress, completed projects or archived content. This includes VTRs & DVRs, video servers, portable storage, on-premise storage, and cloud storage.
Support
The Support link encompasses the supporting capabilities used across the content supply chain to monitor and secure content and run operations. This includes video and audio monitoring, system monitoring, test & measurement, communications, cyber-security and protection, on-premise compute, cloud compute, facility hardware, implementation services and rental services.
“The BaM™ Content Chain: from Creator to Consumer, will change the way we look at our industry. It is the result of a major project undertaken by IABM to redefine the broadcast and media content supply chain as the industry continues to transform,” said Peter White, CEO, IABM. “It had become clear that the previous industry model, based around product categorization, was not able to reflect the enormous changes our industry has gone through – and will continue to go through into the future. There has been a fundamental change throughout the industry from a ‘push’ model to one where the consumer can now ‘pull’ just the content they want, wherever and whenever they want it.
The BaM™ Content Chain: from Creator to Consumer, puts the consumer at the heart of its model and defines the industry ecosystem around delivering what they require. A further beauty of the BaM™ Content Chain model is that it is not static – it is flexible and can evolve to include new products and offerings without being redesigned,” White concluded.
His agencies’ services, for over a quarter century, have helped garner early stage and growth companies significant brand exposure, resulting in either acquisition or IPO, with a total valuation of over $2.5 Billion.
Mr. Chan is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, mentor and angel investor. He played key executive roles early on in helping to pioneer and usher in both professional digital audio and digital video technologies for the recording, broadcast, cinematic and post production industries. He also played key executive roles in helping to develop and market data storage technologies. His expansive background spans four decades in ever increasing executive roles in operations, business development, engineering and sales/marketing in the information technology, media & entertainment, storage and networking, and other related high technology industries.
He is an active mentor and senior advisor to many established and VC backed start-up companies and incubators, a market/technology analyst, and has over three decades of experience in brand development, management consulting, company turnarounds, creative advertising and public relations.
A graduate of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo; Mr. Chan recently ended his 14th year as Vice President for the Fullerton College Foundation; 22nd year as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and mentor for the Small Business Institute at California State University Fullerton and incubators. Additionally, he is a volunteer member of DECA (Delta Epsilon Chi and Distributive Education Clubs of America); an advisor to the College of Engineering's Global Waste Research Institute, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a member of the President’s Green and Gold Society; and advisory council member to Pepperdine University's Most Fundable Companies program. Passionate about hospice care, he was the past Board President for the Healing Hearts Association; and is a regularly featured speaker at many MBA and Doctorate level lectures around the country. He has presented and published over 30 papers worldwide, is a book co-author, an Editorial Board Member for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, past Senior Editor for Broadcast Beat and AV Beat Magazines, Computer Technology Review, and is a regularly featured Contributing Editor to many US and international trade publications for over 35 years.
View Cognitive Impact services at www.cognitiveimpact.com. Curtis can be reached at [email protected]; Office: (714) 620-4993
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