SceneTV is pleased to be a supporter of DCM Europe. DCM (Digital Content Monetisation) conferences bring together leading media owners, content creators, internet and tech experts and solutions providers to discuss how revenue can be generated from digital content.

One of the participants from last year's DCM Europe conference was Philip O'Ferrall, SVP of Viacom International Media Networks. DCM caught up with Philip to discuss Viacom's strategy and his views on the future of digital media.

What do you see as the top priority for digital content-owners right now?

Multiplatform distribution – and ensuring you have the rights for those platforms. Rights are the lifeblood of content. On top of that, you have to ensure the content is right for the platform –which is down to the creative idea, the script and the talent. There’s no simple answer as to what makes content right for each platform, and MTV spans a large demographic, our fans range from kids to adults, with many brands part of the bigger family. The skill is to make our content platform agnostic, to make it work on every platform, whether that’s an ipad, linear television or a Sponge Box Squarepants soft toy.

What is the top content priority for your function?

I’m responsible for all digital activities outside the US, and priorities vary from region to regions. For example, a really exciting and important product for our Latin American audience is the Telly Novella, which we run daily across multiple platforms. I’m working on our staple brands to evolve them onto more platforms and we also have significant coverage on newer platforms such as apps and social media – for which simple is often best. We don’t want to follow the curve with this, we want to be the curve, take the initiative and really drive innovation.

When it comes to selecting platforms, for us it’s all about our fans experience of our content. If a product needs a level of effort to consume for a fan it won’t work, the technology behind the experience should be irrelevant to the fan. Neither should it need too much formatting from us, if we have to expend a lot of energy on a platform we’re less likely to use it, unless we think it’s the next big thing.

What technologies or developments excite you most at the moment?

Search and recommendation is by far the most important element of our digital strategy in terms of technology, attitudes and distribution mechanisms. Social currency is the lifeblood of our programming and has been for 25/30 years. Social networking sites and friend to friend endorsement are absolutely critical. Search is also critical, even if people know our url is mtv.co.uk, they’re still likely to go to Google and search ‘MTV’, so we need to make it work. It’s all about evolving the water cooler moment – making our content front of mind, findable and recommended.

What is the biggest challenge global media owners need to overcome?

Media Asset Management. We have a big, complex, multi-language, multi-genre business, which makes it hard to grow and evolve our asset management strategy. Everything comes in 3D, HD, Hi-res versions, and all the rights and talent has to be paid for each of those formats, often seperately in each region, so we’d need different rights for the same piece of content on TV and on mobile.
In my point of view, managing legacy content is no harder than something we produced a week ago as there are so many different parties involved and all have to participate in the success. We’re very proactive to ensure the talent is properly paid, because that’s a key incentive to perform.

To read the full interview, click here.