NEW YORK — IT solutions company T2 Computing, Inc. (www.t2computing.com), recently hosted a thought leadership forum at Bloomberg LP on media asset management (MAM) and how it can play an influential role in the future of the media & entertainment industry. The “Media Asset Management: Propelling Content Monetization and Creating Greater Business Value” forum was moderated by co-host of The Bloomberg Advantage on Bloomberg Radio, Carol Massar, and provided attendees with the key thought process to profit from current and future content they develop.
The panelists for the event spanned the industry, including leading members of sports leagues, cable operators, IT and MAM software manufacturers. It featured US director of research, senior analyst - media & Internet, Bloomberg Industries, Paul Sweeney; CTO, media & entertainment, EMC², emerging technologies division, Thomas V. Burns; SVP, information technology & security, National Hockey League, Greg Notch; group technology advisor (CTO), Comcast Wholesale, Josh Arensberg; and CTO, Levels Beyond, Danny Gold.
The event started with all panelists agreeing that digitalizing content is a must, but companies need a plan in place to ensure they can capitalize their “content gold mine.” By appropriately logging the content and using strong key words allow entities to quickly know what they have and what would be attractive to outside parties. If the content is not easily searchable, then it is the same as having tape stored in boxes in a warehouse. With appropriate organization and description of subject matter, this content can be sold out for everything from long-form sports programming covering a specific team or player — a newer way of monetizing sports content — to taking some of that footage for an advertisement, or selling the rights to an older program to a streaming service like Netflix.
New delivery methods are additional factors that the panel agreed needs to be considered to successfully monetize content. Viewers now have more options with their content so media outlets must adapt advertising to be more personalized. Programmatic ad insertion, though in its infancy, is growing in popularity with all outlets. This relies on data to track a viewer’s path to better target that user. As a result, ad technology is taking on a bigger role. This is both to integrate all ad related items to provide ad inventory online and across the entire media ecosystem, as well as helping to track the best audience to target for a particular ad.
“Even though the delivery methods and the way media outlets attract viewers are changing, what remains constant is that audiences are attracted to quality, well produced content,” says Jerry Gepner, CEO, Tekserve Corporation and T2 Computing, Inc. “This content is only successful when it has a strong technological backbone, which will ensure that the content is searchable and properly stored, ad data is in place and files are prepped to be viewed on all devices when sent to air. The goal of this forum was to give attendees new ways of thinking of content and how the technology they utilize plays a big role in their success.”