The Center for Copyright Information has launched its Copyright Alert System, an educational campaign aimed at reinforcing copyright laws through a “six-strike” process, including multiple warnings before punitive measures kick in. One of the main targets of the initiative: parents who may not be aware of their copyright-infringing teens. However, as the father of a teen-ager, I have come to realize that kids “get” copyright.

Julian Brodsky, the legendary Comcast co-founder and deal-maker, was strolling through CableNet, the Cable Show exhibit area that showcases emerging technology firms.

A familiar face (a retired executive from a top equipment vendor) flagged him down to take a look at a new Internet Protocol system in which the veteran vendor has invested.

The young company’s marketing executive stepped forward to start the pitch. Brodsky immediately cut to the deal.

“Are you fully funded?” Brodsky asked.

“Yes,” said the company’s enthusiastic marketing man, probably trained to assure potential customers that this is a solid enterprise with financial “legs.”

“Then I’m not interested,” said Brodsky, turning to leave.

The IP company’s president and the veteran vendor, standing on either side, instantly moved forward to assure Brodsky (and the money and relationships he represents) that, of course, the company could certainly find a way to bring Comcast financing into the fold.

Thus reassured, and with the marketing guy stepping away, Brodsky stuck around to ask about the business model, the underlying technology and system structure and other fundamental questions that a potential investor would want to know. The company’s CEO took over the conversation, leaving the marketing man to hustle new customers — presumably ones without the checkbook that Brodsky carries.

Gary Arlen is president of Arlen Communications LLC in Bethesda, MD, and a long-time interactive TV enthusiast. Reach him at GArlen@ArlenCom.com  

By Jim Maiella

When my kids ask me to tell them again what I do to for a living, I say that when the company I work for needs to say something, I help decide what the words should be and how they should be delivered to the people we’re trying to reach. I’m a communicator.

It’s a simple articulation of an expertise that is becoming more complicated every day, and more important - across the universe of companies, governments, celebrities and others. Communications as a core function is changing before our eyes, as the dividing lines and distinctions between audiences disappear, social media offers new tools (and traps) and “traditional” media outlets navigate a challenging economy and structural changes that are severely constraining resources.

Clearly, the days of writing the release, distributing the release and pitching the release are over - the world we live in today as communicators is much more complex, dynamic and nuanced. The good news is that we have never had as much of an ability to drive business results or occupy a critical seat at the table than we do at this very moment.

The emergence of social media has fundamentally changed what we do - regardless of the extent to which our respective companies or clients are using it for outgoing contact with consumers. The value of platforms like Twitter and Facebook as listening tools cannot be overstated. There has never been this kind of immediate feedback on the products, services, decisions and other corporate initiatives we all obsess over. We can make our own decisions in terms of how best to engage and speak through these services, but failing to listen is no longer an option.

There are important skills every communicator needs to be successful. With the undeniable technology-enabled shift to text-based communications, the ability to write has never been more critical than it is today. More than ever before, the things we say show up in print, even if the words are never printed. It’s no longer just about crafting an announcement and trying to convince a journalist to adapt the information into a news story. Our language appears, often directly, in posts, comment threads, e-mails, Tweets, “internal” memos, quotes and myriad other places. The filters are gone, and this is a largely good thing.

Like kids who grew up with computers instead of paper notebooks, young people working in communications today have a natural advantage in their ability to navigate and serve as guides to social platforms that are already integrated into their own lives. More established or senior communicators who have nailed the basics have a responsibility to learn the new channels now at our disposal, just as junior counterparts need to master fundamentals that can now be applied across an expanding array of options. Being well-versed in the finer points of YouTube or Tumblr is terrific, but it’s not going to get you very far if you can’t write a solid set of key messages, perform in a crisis environment or think through the strategies behind a communications plan. Whether you’ve been a professional communicator for 20 years or for two, our function requires an ongoing commitment to education, training and sharing expertise with our fellow communicators.

For those of us working in cable, there is no better time to do this than during the Association of Cable Communicators’ annual event, FORUM. Conducted every fall in New York City as part of the industry’s Diversity Week, FORUM is the one opportunity all year for ACC members to come together in a single location and share insights and perspectives on the practice that unites us as professionals - cable communications.

This year’s event, at the Hilton New York October 5 and 6, is our 25th FORUM, and the theme, “Communicating Cable’s Future,” is as much directed at the industry as it is the communications function itself.

Sessions will include a deep dive into social media, including an actionable review of practical tools and technologies; insights from senior agency executives; a regulatory perspective from new NCTA president & CEO Michael Powell and a discussion with key media/technology reporters like Brian Stelter of The New York Times - or @brianstelter, as he’s more commonly known - Peter Lauria of Reuters, the Hollywood Reporter’s Georg Szalai and Amy Maclean of CableFAX Daily. We’ll also present the Beacon Awards, recognizing excellence in communications and public affairs across the industry.

This is an incredibly exciting and vital time for our profession, with new tools at our disposal, new challenges and an increasingly central role in the success of the companies and entities we speak for in the marketplace. The most important commitment a communicator can make in this environment of change is a commitment to learning and professional growth. There’s no falling back on yesterday’s way of doing things, because - in our business - yesterday is gone.

Jim Maiella is president of the Association of Cable Communicators, the industry’s only professional association dedicated to raising the level of communications work across the industry, and vice president of media relations for Cablevision Systems Corp.

By Char Beales

As cable’s Movies on Demand integrated marketing campaign completes its sophomore year amidst the implosion of brick and mortar rental stores and competition from streaming, mail and vending machine services, it’s apropos that we take stock of its accomplishments.

It all began with studios and cable companies coming together in an unprecedented partnership in 2010. The goal was to build awareness of cable’s Movies on Demand category with consumers who might not know the robust platform was as an option for in-home entertainment.

That was just the beginning. This year, the goals were expanded from awareness to driving buys, particularly among new and light users.

Frank N. Magid Associates reported that 81% of survey respondents said they enjoyed the convenience of Movies on Demand and nearly two-thirds said it was a good value for the money. But considering that in the first half of 2011, eight of the top 10 performing Movies on Demand were released the same day as DVD (Rentrak, July 25), that’s no real surprise. In fact, in 2010, 60% of all titles with more than $1 million in domestic box office revenue came to cable the same day as the DVD.

Our campaign is grounded in TV ads; we’re promoting 68 titles from the 10 participating studios. Plus, we’ve gotten smarter about how we reach customers using social media, having achieved tens of thousands of “likes” on facebook.com/moviesondemand. Then, there are the regular radio and print features, blogger engagement and breakthrough digital media, like website.rentmoviesondemand.com and the just-launched Movies on Demand “List It” app.

In this app, users who “like us” are able to create and share their Top 5 MOD lists in various categories with their friends on Facebook. Inspired by a new MOD release every week, each new list entry is automatically entered for a chance to win daily prizes, including $5 in Cable Cash good toward an MOD rental, and a grand prize of a 46-inch 3DTV. If users have trouble deciding on their lists, the app includes critics like Leonard Maltin to help them along.

As we head into the home stretch of the 2011 campaign , I’m most encouraged by the numbers. Recent Rentrak set-top data shows that, among heavy, medium and light users, the segment impacted the most by cable’s Movies on Demand campaign is light users. Prior to the campaign, light users spent, on average, $6.41 per set-top-box on MOD. The latest numbers say they spent $8.92. New users spent $10.33.

If each company was working separately, we’re convinced we could not achieve these results. But together we’re breaking through.

________________________________________
Char Beales is CEO of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing.

By Chad E. Gutstein, Ovation TV

I have a few friends who have “cut the cord.” And no, I haven’t told them to lose my number.

I have asked them to keep their receipts, though. And at the end of the year, we’re going to add up all the money they’ve spent on video product and high-speed data, as well as all the iTunes purchases, Netflix and Hulu Plus subscriptions, the cost of the Roku or Boxee boxes, and lifeline video subscriptions (yes, multichannel providers do still sell lifeline). I’ll bet each of them will have saved or spent an extra $200. If we get TV Everywhere right, I also bet each one of them reconnects the video cord next year.

Providing consumers with access to networks’ programming anytime, anyplace and on any device is the biggest moneymaking opportunity our industry has had since the introduction of the affiliate fee 30 years ago. By giving consumers more choice over how and when they view our content (and what they pay to view it), we will price-discriminate ourselves to higher profits. And our viewers will love us for it.

Although cable networks are eager to make their entire schedules available on TV Everywhere, licensing TVE rights from content owners has been problematic. Cable programmers, while cautiously building libraries of original content, license a substantial amount of the content they air. This is true for big network groups and small independent channels alike. Most of the licensed content comes from big film and TV studios, which are reticent to license TVE rights.

Can you blame them? Studios, like the rest of us, don’t yet know what TVE rights are worth. And while we all expect TVE to be a solid revenue source for all participants down the road, for now, nobody really knows. The distributors, eager to offer TVE as added value for video subscriptions, aren’t paying networks anything additional either.

So, how do we move forward? We start by including linear TVE and non-linear free-on-demand windows around exhibition days with the TV license. Specifically, these windows should extend for seven days around a movie exhibition and 30 days around a series’ episode exhibition.

Why these windows? Because that is where the majority of the catch-up viewing exists. According to Nielsen, viewing increases on average by single digits in the live-plus-3-days window, with an increase of as much as 24% for some networks in the live-plus-7-days window. And for series, a 30-plus-days window provides an opportunity to gain new viewers who may have not been watching from the start (think 30 Rock and Mad Men) but want to sample or catch up on the story later.

Extended windows also allow for truly incremental ad revenue. Even when Nielsen starts measuring TV Everywhere, it is likely to only capture the C3 period. But that’s OK. TVE will allow us to start getting paid for all the viewership after three days that is currently overlooked.

Once networks monetize that incremental inventory, we can begin to pay more for the TV licenses. But it’s going to take time. In the interim, in exchange for the TVE rights, I propose that we give our studio licensors a 15-second spot for promotional use in the inventory available for days four to seven in movies, and for up to 30 days in episodic series. And by committing to shorterterm deals, we can quickly meet our consumers’ demands and launch these services.

We all need to put viewers first. So, let’s stop arguing about rights for a marketplace that isn’t yet commercially viable so we can all begin to benefit from TV Everywhere now.

Chad E. Gutstein is chief operating officer of Ovation and a partner in the Arcadia Investment Partners/ Ovation investment vehicles that led the acquisition and financing of the network in 2006.