Radio Interview: James Cawley, Executive Producer, Star Trek New Voyages

Upstate New York resident, James Cawley, whose background includes, among other things, a stint as an Elvis-impersonator, is the executive producer of Star Trek New Voyages (startreknewvoyages.com), a production company that produces original episodes of "Star Trek," based on the characters from that show's first season (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, etc.). Downloads of these hour-long, fan-generated broadband TV episodes have been in the multiple millions, and their audience base appears to be growing rapidly. In this recorded audio interview from the latest edition of [itvt]'s new talk radio show, "The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," Cawley shares his thoughts on producing original, fan-generated "Star Trek" programming for the Internet; describes the events that led to the formation of Star Trek New Voyages; discusses the company's relationship with CBS (the owner of the "Star Trek" franchise); provides a preview of new episodes and new characters that the company has in the pipeline (including "Star Trek's" first gay character); discusses the possibility of making the show interactive or building a social network around it; and much more.

To listen to the interview, please click here.

Next Live Broadcast of "The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow"

Date: Tuesday, January 8th, 2007
Time: 10:00AM Pacific/1:00PM Eastern
Length: approximately one hour
Show's Homepage: click here to listen to the show live
To Ask Questions: call 1-646-595-4343

This broadcast will feature an interview with Hans Fischmann, general manager of advanced media at Charter Media, the advertising arm of cable MSO, Charter Communications. Since joining Charter Media in January 2007, Fischmann and his team have launched over 100 interactive and VOD advertising campaigns.

How to Listen and Participate

To listen to the show live, simply go to its homepage. [itvt] readers can participate in the show in a number of ways:

• By calling the show live at 1-646-595-4343.
• By submitting questions and comments via a chat application that appears on the "TV of Tomorrow Show" homepage during live broadcasts.
• By appearing on the show as a guest or co-host (if you or your company are interested in being featured on the show, please email your pitch to Tracy Swedlow at swedlow@itvt.com).
• By sponsoring the show (if your company is interested in sponsoring the show, please email Richard Washbourne at rwashbourne@itvt.com).

Archived Broadcasts

[itvt] is making past broadcasts of the show available on the show's homepage:

Broadcast #6: Three high-profile figures from the interactive TV space--Patrick Donoghue, VP of ITV product management at Time Warner Cable; Bill Niemeyer, chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow; and David Preisman, VP of interactive television at Showtime Networks--provide a retrospective of the year in interactive TV, present their picks for the year's most important ITV stories, and predict the important ITV trends for 2008. Topics discussed include the rise of user-generated content; the demise of TMG; the significance of the top-secret interactive TV advertising initiative, "Canoe"; the emergence of big-budget broadband TV programming; EchoStar's purchase of Sling Media; DirecTV's purchase of ReplayTV; and much more.

Broadcast #5: Three senior executives from mobile interactive TV specialist, SinglePoint--president and CEO, Rich Begert; VP of industry relations, Doug Busk; and director of marketing, Philippe Poutonnet--discuss, among other things, the company's recent deal with NBC Universal. The deal will see SinglePoint providing mobile interactive/participation TV services for a range of NBC Universal's programming and channels, including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, USA Network, NBC Sports, and NBC News.

Broadcast #4: Steve Rosenbaum is founder and CEO of Magnify.net, a company that provides a new Web 2.0 service which allows end-users to create video galleries/channels complete with social networks. He discusses Magnify.net's service and the business model behind it; provides examples of how it is being used; outlines the company's current strategy and future plans; and more.

Broadcast #3: Brian Seth Hurst, a well-known figure in interactive TV circles, was recently elected as vice chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the organization behind the Primetime Emmys. His election marks the first time ever that a new media specialist has served in such a senior role at the Academy. Hurst discusses what his election says about the evolution of the Academy and of the television establishment in general; the significance of the ongoing writers' strike for the interactive and broadband TV industries; and much more.

Broadcast #2: Jodie McAfee, who was formerly SVP of corporate development and marketing at The Media Group (TMG), a high-profile interactive TV advertising and programming company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year, discusses that company's demise; his new company, BoomerangiTV; the cable industry interactive TV advertising initiative known as "Project Canoe"; the current state of the ITV advertising industry in general; and more.

Broadcast #1: Louis Slothouber and Dan Levinson of BIAP discuss their company's technologies; the challenges involved in deploying the company's interactive TV applications (which include eBay on TV, Yellow Pages on TV, and Fantasy Football and Baseball Trackers); the company's patent portfolio; the current state of the cable industry; ITV standards; artificial intelligence; emerging market opportunities; and more.

Interview: Jonathan Beavon, Director of Segment Marketing, NDS

As director of segment marketing at News Corp.-owned conditional access and interactive TV technology provider, NDS, Jonathan Beavon is in charge of the company's Unified Headend project. The Unified Headend is a layer that unifies the company's various conditional access and digital rights management products, thus enabling operators to securely deliver the same content in a consistent manner to multiple, diverse platforms. He recently spoke to [itvt]'s Tracy Swedlow about the market conditions that led to the development of the Unified Headend; about new cross-platform, interactive services that the Unified Headend makes possible; about the growing interest in cross-platform services on the part of pay-TV operators; and more.

[itvt]: Could you describe for us what NDS's Unified VideoGuard Headend is and what it does?

Beavon: As you know, we've announced VideoGuard products for set- top boxes, for mobile phones, for removable media--so flash memory--and also for the PC. The NDS Unified Headend is a layer that unifies all the different VideoGuard conditional access and digital rights management products that we have.

It allows an operator to securely deliver content to multiple platforms in a harmonized way. That, in turn, makes it easy for operators to better leverage the content delivered to a consumer by also distributing it across additional networks or platforms. At the same time, it gives subscribers the freedom to view content anytime, anywhere, on any device. So, in short, the Unified Headend is a layer that we've built on top of the various flavors of VideoGuard.

[itvt]: Why did you decide to develop it at this time? What market conditions led to this development?

Beavon: We developed it in order to meet the requirements coming from our customers. They started to realize that separate, siloed stacks of video offerings for set-top box, PC, IPTV or mobile are a problem. Within a pay-TV operation, there are often two or three separate groups all doing more or less the same thing--operating video services. And, of course, each of these different silos relies on technologies from a variety of vendors. What we're finding is that pay-TV operators are interested in unifying their video operations: they want to be able to use the same VideoGuard set-up for TV as for their PC-based or mobile video offerings.

The first operator to take advantage of our Unified Headend is yes in Israel. VideoGuard is used to secure both their satellite TV and their PC offerings. Using the Unified Headend, VideoGuard PC integrates with the current headend architecture, extending their service reach in the home from the set-top box to the PC.

[itvt]: Could you describe in more detail some of the new functionality that the Unified Headend enables?

Beavon: The Unified Headend is a layer that joins our different CA/DRM solutions, and this layer adds new functionalities to support on-demand purchase of content and personalized, cross-device business offers. The potential applications for this capability are many, but a few examples are recommendation of TV content, personalization of advertising that is unique to each subscriber and each receiving device, and also integration of personalized communication functions across platforms.

The Unified Headend enables pay-TV operators to go beyond the TV set-top box and deliver broadcast and on-demand video services to a variety of devices, build subscriber loyalty, and increase revenues. Delivering content just to the set-top box is no longer sufficient, and operators also have to be able to deliver their content to PC's, mobile phones, portable media players, and other devices.

[itvt]: How would an operator that's using NDS's Unified Headend manage their multiplatform video services?

Beavon: They use their current content-management systems and business systems to set up the rules that they want for, say, the PC and for the set-top box respectively. What we're finding is that companies will understand the principle of the Unified Headend, but will normally have different content-management systems and business systems that they want to implement. So we integrate our Unified Headend with their content management and business systems. The Unified Headend is the layer that allows the operator to make business offers for content to users and groups of consumer devices rather than just to a single device and a single user.

[itvt]: Now, you claim that the Unified Headend not only makes it easier for operators to manage their content across multiple platforms, but also makes it possible for them to offer new kinds of cross-platform services. Could you elaborate?

Beavon: Yes, if you have rules that you can apply cross-platform, it starts to mean that you can invent new ideas for enhancing and monetizing content across platforms. For example, you can have a recommendation service that works between the PC and the TV: I could be sitting at my PC, watching a great video, and I could send you a message recommending that you also watch it. I'd send the recommendation from my PC, and it would pop up on your TV screen when you turned on your television. You could click on a link in the message, and it either would take you to the piece of content I'd recommended on-demand, or it would set up a reminder in your linear TV schedule.

You can also extend this idea of recommendations to making it possible for end-users to buy gifts for their friends: if I were sitting at my PC watching some VOD content, I could not only recommend it to you--sending a message to your television or your mobile phone--I could actually buy it for you as a gift. So the rights I have purchased--say I decided to buy five dollars' worth of VOD--I could send them to you as a birthday gift. All that would flow through the Unified Headend system and you could, of course, watch the content I bought for you on your TV, your PC, or your mobile phone. These kinds of scenarios are what make our strategy of unifying the VideoGuard headend powerful: it results in new possibilities for driving viewers and/or money to content offers. In both these cases the Unified Headend supports the purchase or recommendation on any device, and then enables the business offer to be sent to any device and to any user.

[itvt]: Now, while all these scenarios that the Unified Headend enables are very interesting, naturally the operators that implement them have to get the buy-in of the content-owners...

Beavon: You're right: if an operator wants to implement a content strategy based on offers across platforms like set-top box, PC and mobile, they're going to have to engage in negotiations with content owners, unless they create and own the content themselves.

[itvt]: Are you seeing interest in the Unified Headend from North American and European operators?

Beavon: Yes, the difference between this year and last year is that this year we're seeing RFP's for this kind of thing from customers. Now, while the Unified Headend makes it possible to pursue a unified content strategy across three or even four screens, most of these RFP's envision scenarios where content would be offered over two platforms: so TV and PC, or TV and mobiles, or maybe TV and portable media players.

A year ago, we didn't hear any of this: operators would say, "IPTV's important to us," but they'd just be conceiving of it as a replication of a cable or satellite TV system. Now, everybody's truly thinking in terms of cross-platform--thinking of scenarios that a unified, cross-platform content strategy makes possible.

[itvt]: Are you seeing a lot of interest in the Unified Headend from telcos?

Beavon: Yes. What we're seeing with the telcos is that they're very interested in combining this with technologies like Web services and IMS. A common scenario here might be shifting entertainment content from the TV to a mobile device. They're very interested in trying to anticipate what might be possible on the multiple networks they own.

[itvt]: The Unified Headend isn't fully commercially available today, correct?

Beavon: The Unified Headend includes several components and we are delivering these solutions. Different customers have different needs and do not necessarily need to deploy and use all the components. For example a customer might not deploy all the mobile TV options, because the intended reception is via TV and PC. This modular architecture can be tailored to meet the varying needs of customers and allow expansion paths.

[itvt]: When do you expect to be offering a more or less 100% complete version of the Unified Headend?

Beavon: By the first quarter of 2008. We have a roadmap through 2008 that will deliver cross-platform combinations and scenarios that we and our customers require. It's ongoing work, and it is aligned with our customers' business plans.

[itvt]: How long do you anticipate that a customer delivery and integration will take?

Beavon: It really depends on how clear a customer is about what they want to do. If they're absolutely confident about the cross-platform scenarios that they want to offer, then it is straightforward. If they're uncertain about those scenarios--which is not uncommon and perfectly understandable, since so much of this area is new--it's a bit more of a challenge to accurately predict timeframes.

[itvt]: Earlier in our conversation, you were mentioning RFP's. Presumably you get RFP's from all the different kinds of pay-TV platform operators--satellite, telco and cable. What kinds of new TV services are each of those different groups looking for?

Beavon: What we hear a lot from satellite customers is that they want to add VOD to their offering. They want to do that in one of two ways: either by pushing content to the hard disks on their subscribers' DVR's, or by making content available on-demand via broadband. The satellite providers feel pressure to compete with cable's and telco TV's on-demand proposition. So that's where they're coming from.

The telcos are also interested in VOD, and they're also often very interested in offering content on the PC or mobile devices. Whether they're more interested in broadband or mobile TV depends very much on which telco you're talking to. Clearly if they have a wireless business, they're usually more interested in mobile TV.

[itvt]: Roughly what percentage of your customers are proactively approaching you about implementing these various cross-platform services that you mentioned earlier?

Beavon: I would say that maybe 70% of them are now making these kinds of inquiries: inquiries about our ability to support cross-platform services, whether delivered to hybrid set-top boxes--i.e. set-tops with an Ethernet connection--or over a combination of set-tops, PC's and mobiles.

URL: NDS

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ABOUT [itvt]

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[itvt] is an ITV/broadband advisory and media company which identifies new trends, business opportunities, and relationships within the interactive television broadband space. [itvt] offers professional services, products, and programs to clients. These include our free email newsletter, focused analysis and advice sessions, in-depth research reports, a B2B portal Web site, networking and workshop events, dynamic online discussion groups, and interactive database resources.

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