magazine - Connect-World

Digital content
Content is king
by Steve Ellis, CEO and President, Broadcast Pix
Content may well be king, but producing a king today is easy. They don’t make kings as they
used to. Today, anyone with a laptop, some sophisticated editing and production software,
and two or three consumer camcorders (or just a cellphone and microphone)can produce
professional content. Add an Internet link, and the producer can distribute it worldwide from
home or even a hotel room - all this at a tiny fraction of what it would have cost less than
ten years ago.
Steve Ellis is CEO and President of Broadcast Pix, and a member of the board of directors. Mr Ellis previously he served vice president
of sales and as vice president of emerging markets at Telestream. Mr Ellis began his video career in the Air Force, Merrill Lynch and
AT&T. Mr Ellis was Vice President and General Manager of Editel Boston. Mr Ellis was also a co-founder of SNNY, which sold video
production equipment and was the top reseller for Pinnacle Systems; Pinnacle later hired him as its director of sales for the Americas.
At Vizrt, he served as Vice President of Sales for North American Operations.
Steve Ellis has a communications degree from the State University of New York.
‘Content is king’ is a quote that has been
vastly overused (and thank you, Mr. Gates,
for the original quote), but it does speak
to the world in which we live. However, I
would take this one step further and modify
his quote to say, “Content is king, but
he who controls the content has the keys
to the kingdom.” The rapidly changing
communication and media landscape is
creating an environment where anyone can
create a kingdom. At the start of my career in
the broadcast and production industry, it took
money and power to control content - and
only those with enough resources were given
the opportunity to be ‘kings.’
Granted, there were a few lucky individuals
that were at the right place at the right time,
but I would contend that if you wanted to
launch a radio station or TV station, build a
station group, or launch CNN, you had to be
someone like Ted Turner with the resources
to do so. You also had to commit those
resources (time and money), and be prepared
to sacrifice equal amounts of both. It was also
very important that you were a visionary with
your eye focused on success.
The rules to success were clearly written,
and how you controlled content was fairly
straightforward. You had to have money and
lots of it. Whoever controlled the medium
controlled the content.
Today, there are only two steadfast rules
needed to build a media empire, and it no
longer takes a great deal of money to control
the media and its associated content. You
need to know a few things, such as a basic
understanding of modern communication,
including the Internet and the technology
needed to create content that will be
disseminated on the Internet. And you need a
very good idea; you need to be a visionary.
A great example of this is Justin Bieber, a
young and extremely wealthy entertainer
who got his start when his music video
on YouTube went viral. A simple video
delivered on the Web, a virtually free
medium, launched a career without
the need of millions for marketing and
promotion. Content is still king, but the
rules have changed.
Not long ago, I was interviewed by a Webbased
industry magazine and given the
6 • EMEA 2013