Attended BIA|Kelsey’s “Digital Strategies for Broadcasting” last week. There was optimism regarding the continued strength of TV and Radio as you would expect but also many stats regarding the changing consumption of media by consumers and the shifting of advertising dollars to digital assets. Again, no surprise there.

The big takeaway was aggregating content across all platforms and connectivity to consumers is the new currency. You must marry your audiences with your advertiser. Broadcasters must FOCUS ON CUSTOMER (advertiser, listener, viewer, user, reader, consumer) SUCCESS! They actually said those words!!

Some highlights of interest:

1. Hyper-Local community websites can produce nickels but the nickels roll up to significant revenue. The use of highly trained telemarketers has helped produce significant revenue according to Colleen Brown, President and CEO, Fisher Communications. The sites allow advertisers who cannot afford TV to advertise effectively and efficiently creating a new revenue stream. She has partnered with DataSphere. One Producer oversees 15 sites and they also depend on UGC. Here’s a link to their community sites in Seattle.
2. Mobile is the big disruptor and there are many aspects to mobile – mobile TV, mobile radio, SMS, MMS, Apps, etc. This is truly one-to-one connectivity with the consumer and possibly the best brand extension device we will see in the near future.
3. It still remains- content is king and meaningful distribution of that content to the consumer is key. Develop alliances to collect great content and Fred Fourcher, president-CEO of Bitcentral, suggests cooperating with fellow broadcasters to accomplish this. Why go it alone or duplicate efforts?

There was more of course. If you have specific questions regarding the conference or how I can help your organization develop and implement a Digital Strategy let me know. A lot to be done but this “crisis” is really an “opportunity.”