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So this is Frank Radice, welcome back to the Red Touch Media continuing series on The Future
of Content. We're here at the Skullcandy booth and we're talking to Tim Hanlon who is the
CEO and founder of The Vertere group out of Chicago. Tell me a little bit about what you
get out of this kind of a conference. Yeah, it's gotten crazy over the years, but I would
say anybody who is in the marketing and advertising media fields, needs to get much more comfortable
with the rapid pace of technology. It's changed the things that are real and the things that
are maybe not so real and start to bring back those things into the actual process of the
day to day business when they go back to the office. I look at for example, UHD you know,
the Samsung curved screens and the next generation of High-def. We can choose to believe it,
or not, like 3D, but if you're not already thinking about it as a programmer, as a content
producer, as a content distributor, even as an advertiser. If you're not thinking about
sort of the next generation of video presentation, that's going to be a couple year cycle and
it's not something you can kind of just hope is going to go away, or just magically happen.
Lets talk about the second screen experience and whether or not the idea of a second screen
experience is viable, or how it can be made to be viable. Yeah, I think a lot of people
have been disappointed at how quickly the hype around the opportunity around a second
screen action or activity around television is, kind of come and gone. I think a lot of
people are kind of scratching their heads as to say well, why isn't this sort of taking
off? I think it really boils down to narrative, if a programer.. If programming has enhancements
to be had, that really helps imbold in the narrative. I think live sports, I think news,
I think weather, I think perhaps live events. I don't think dramatic motion pictures, I
don't think serial drama's, I don't think sitcoms. You know, those things tend to be
more fun, nice to have, with trivia pulls and that kind of stuff. If you're fundamentally
improving the experience for a certain sub segment of consumer, and I think that's important
too. Not everybody is going to want to two screen their television experience, but sports
junkies who are interested in their teams or passionate about their sports and maybe
participate in a fantasy sports or have other games going on simultaneously, or if you're
in Vegas maybe your serial betters, whatever, it takes all kinds. I think the reality is
that, that can be enhanced and there's only so much that a director and a producer can
squeeze into that one screen. So, multiple camera angles, statistics, real-time. It'll
all end up looking like CNBC. It could be, but again CNBC and all those sort of, the
collision of data on the screen. Those are decisions made by directors and producers.
What if the consumer can be a bit more incharge? For some people that's not enough, for some
people it's too much. To be able to give the consumer a little bit more flexibility? I
think the second screen type of activity has a role to play. So I have one last question
i'd like to ask you. Do you think that the traditional television network is going to
live as a broadcaster that is casting broadly all of these different types of content? Whether
it's dramas and comedies and live sports and news and business and weather. It seems to
me, that with this proliferation of cable and all of what's going on on the other off
channels. Whether it's digital or whether it's streaming, that the networks area of
expertise will be that live stuff? I think there's always going to be a role for broadcasting,
meeting big audiences simultaneous live and linear. Sports is the ultimate example of
that, but I see events. I see certain types of quality and exclusive programming still
being that and I think it's going to be quite a bit of time before the measurement of the
television experience, be a Nielson and others to evolve to what is really becoming much
more of a non-linear, on-demand, when you want to watch it kind of experience. I think
though, broadcasting is part of a bigger ecosystem now of distribution. Which includes over the
top, non linear, on-demand, all these other kinds of ways where if you're an advertiser
maybe you need to aggregate those audiences, plural, across a longer period of time. Maybe
swapping out the ads at a certain period of time. Maybe it's that eighth day after the
Nielsen LIVE +7 numbers, where a dynamic ad insertion is much more valuable and relevant
than an ad that ran 3 days ago. To me, that's the opportunity and I think that's nothing
but upside. If the people and the politics can get out of the way. So, from CES 2014,
this is Frank Radice for Red Touch Media at the Skullcandy booth.