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Final programme of speakers confirmed for c&binet 2009

Nick | 20 Oct 2009, 14:19

We can now unveil the final line-up of speakers, moderators and panelists for c&binet forum 2009, taking place at the Grove, Hertfordshire, next week.

19 Entertainment Chairman and Founder Simon Fuller and Hat Trick Productions co-founder and CEO Jimmy Mulville will join Ingenious Media Founder and Chief Executive Patrick McKenna to discuss the challenge of how to increase the flow of investment in to the creative industries, while Harish Dayani, Chief Executive of Moser Baer Entertainment Ltd will present a masterclass revealing how India tackled DVD piracy and won.

The British Government will be represented by The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson, First Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Rt Hon Ben Bradshaw MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Siôn Simon MP, Creative Industries Minister and the Rt Hon David Lammy MP, Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property. Journalist Jenni Russell will MC the event.

In order of appearance, the speakers are:

Stryker McGuire, contributing editor, Newsweek
Prof. Phil Redmond CBE
Rory Sutherland, vice chairman & creative director, Ogilvy and president, IPA
David Rowan, editor, Wired (UK)
Tim Suter, founder of Perspective Associates
Neil Berkett CEO of Virgin Media
James Lancaster, head of contributor and talent rights, BBC
Geoff Heath OBE, board director, ELSPA and Tiga
Dr Jeremy Silver, acting CEO, Featured Artists Coalition
Andrew Harrison, Associate Editor, THE WORD
Andy Heath, director, Beggars Group
Dame Gail Rebuck CBE, chair & chief executive, Random House Group
Chris Clarke, founder and CEO, Sapient Nitro
Jean-Bernard Lévy, CEO, Vivendi
Amanda Andrews, media editor, Telegraph Media Group
Jonathan Reynolds, CEO,Touchtype
Andrew Wright, CEO, Andrew Wright Associates
Simon Evans, CEO, Simon Games
Clare Reddington, Director, iShed
Ashley Highfield, managing director, consumer & online, Microsoft UK
Marc Watson, CEO, BT Vision
Phil Smith, managing director – UK, Cisco Systems
Alex Stanhope, lead technologist for the creative industries, Technology Strategy Board
Odile Quintin, director general - education and culture, EU Commission
Elio Leoni-Sceti, chief executive - EMI Music
Patience Wheatcroft, editor, Wall Street Journal Europe
Robert Andrews, editor, paidContent:UK
Paul Brown, managing director, Spotify UK
Stephen Moore, executive vice president for Disney-ABC-ESPN Television, Walt Disney EMEA
Kristian Segerstrale, CEO, Playfish
Tim Clark, founding partner, IE:Music
Rob Lewis, CEO, Omnifone
Stephen Somerville, commercial director, 7digital
Patrick McKenna, CEO, Ingenious Media
Steve Hewlett, media consultant and broadcaster
Simon Fuller, founder & chairman, 19 Group
Jimmy Mulville, co-founder & CEO, Hat Trick Productions
Lorna Tilbian, executive director, Numis Corporation
Julie Meyer, CEO, Ariadne Capital and founder, First Tuesday network
Sean Duffy, head of technology, media & telecoms, Barclays Commercial
Daniel Waterhouse, partner, Wellington Partners
Rick Cotton, executive vice president & general counsel, NBC Universal
Gregor Pryor, partner, Reedsmith
Jenine Hulsmann, partner, Clifford Chance
Nikhil Shah, co-founder, Mix Cloud
Harish Dayani, chief executive, Moser Baer Entertainment
Tim Bradshaw, digital & media correspondent, Financial Times
Matt Brittin, managing director, Google UK
Laurence Green, chairman, Fallon London
Spencer Hyman, internet entrepreneur & former COO of Last.fm
Lorraine Heggessey, chief executive, Talkback Thames
Dharmesh Mistry, general partner, Balderton Capital
James Tye, CEO, Dennis Publishing
Martin Bright, chair, New Deal of the Mind and political editor, Jewish Chronicle
Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision
Ivan Dunleavy, chief executive, Pinewood Shepperton
Boko Inyundo, global sector manager, Linklaters and trustee of The Africa Centre
Liz Nottingham, HR Director, Starcom MediaVest Group, VivaKi Country Talent & Transformation Officer, Chair IPA People Management Group
Ángeles González-Sinde Reig, Minister of Culture, Spain
Angela Whelan and Jon Teckman, Ashridge Business School
James Moed and Georgie Mack, IDEO
Judie Lannon, Editor, Strategic Marketing Journal and Market Leader
Will Hutton, Executive Vice-Chair, The Work Foundation
Giles Hedger, head of strategy, Leo Burnett
Andy Hobsbawm, co-founder, Do the Green Thing
Feargal Sharkey, CEO, UK Music
Peter Jenner, International Music Managers Forum
Fred Bolza, VP, Strategic Development, Sony Music (UK)
Ed Shedd, partner & global media practice leader, Deloitte
James Bates, partner, UK media practice, Deloitte
Jocelyn Stevenson, creative director, TT Animation
Greg Childs, Save Kids TV campaign
Oli Hatton, founder, Blue Zoo Productions
Jeff Norton, senior VP, brand development, Chorion
Anthony Lilley, CEO, Magic Lantern Productions
Richard Deverell, COO, BBC North
Michael Acton Smith, CEO, Mind Candy
Matt Locke, commissioning editor for Channel 4 Education
Phil Davies, co-founder, Astley Baker Davies (production company)
Philipp Nattermann, head of media, McKinsey
James Montgomery, director of digital content, BBC World News
Richard Titus, chief executive, Associated Northcliffe Digital
James Patmore, MD EMEA, Boku
Mike Bracken, Guardian Media Group
Simon Evans, director, Creative Clusters
Glyn Middleton, Chief Executive, True North
Ian Hetherington, Founder, Realtime Worlds
Richard Halton, programming director IPTV, BBC
Jack Horner, founder and creative director, Frukt Music
Paul Samuels, Executive Director of Sponsorships, AEG Global Partnerships
Brian Message, Music Managers Forum
Matt Hirst, Head of Sports Culture & Events, Red Bull

For the full c&binet agenda, click here.

What can C&binet achieve?

Alastair | 15 Oct 2009, 10:11

C&binet Comment - Clare Reddington , Director Ished and Pervasive Media Studio gives her opinion on what she hopes c&binet can achieve

Producing a purposeful international dialogue around the challenges and opportunities of the creative economy is no small undertaking given the diverse set of interests, disciplines, business models and organisational cultures at play. What then are my hopes for C&binet? It is this very diversity (in attendee and theme) which plays into the concerns of Watershed, a ‘cross art form’ media centre established in Bristol in 1982:

As we know, the creative industries are going through a period of rapid change. As technologies converge and platforms proliferate, finding time and space to develop content, applications and services which capture imagination and deliver value has become even more tricky.

Across our artistic programme, through investment and support schemes like Media Sandbox and in The Pervasive Media Studio (a research space exploring future mobile and wireless experiences), Watershed seeks to develop meaningful opportunities for future, emerging and established talent. By joining up creative businesses, artists, researchers, technology firms and (critically) an engaged population of early adopters, we are able to link knowledge, explore new markets and produce innovative ideas, products and processes. But this space is high-risk and there is both challenge and opportunity in responding to demand with an open approach. A need for new thinking is required:

Public service content for instance is being redefined by the inexorable spread of digital connectivity.  Digital Britain says ‘Public service content in Digital Britain now comes from a much wider range of sources than in the analogue age’. Like Tate, the Royal Opera House and RSC, Watershed’s creative content now reaches a wider public online than through our physical building.

The combination of digital disruption and the UK’s global advantage in high-quality arts and broadcast provision provides huge opportunity: to engage more widely, to explore the pervasive power of ‘prosumer’ creative energy and to pioneer new forms of economic, cultural and social value. But significant culture shifts will need to occur to enable meaningful, equitable models of collaboration in this space.

For the UK the policy challenge is how we resource risk in a public funding climate that defaults to tangible known and measurable outcomes in conventional economy terms.
To push the boundaries of new technologies, engage the broadest pool of talent and stay internationally competitive we must involve a diverse range of producers and users from across the value chain, understanding that current mechanisms of support and development will be challenged to their core.

My hope is that C&binet will inform and sustain a genuine and meaningful commitment (from those working in the creative economy as well as from policy makers) to cross-sectoral collaboration which responds to this fast moving world with open, engaged ways of thinking and working.

Creativity and Commerce

Valerie | 12 Oct 2009, 16:10

C&binet ambassador comment: Patrick McKenna, Chief Executive of Ingenious Media, a leading investor in the creative industries.

Creativity and commerce often make uneasy bedfellows.  Here, in an interview first published in HOUSE magazine, Patrick McKenna talks about how we need to get entrepreneurial business talent and creative talent working better together.

“Creative talent is highly mobile and UK creative talent is particularly attractive to global companies. Whilst this isn’t a bad thing in itself, we must build greater business capacity within our own creative industries so that the UK can benefit from the commercial opportunities generated by our writers, producers, musicians and other artists”.

The relationship between art and commerce has always been fraught.  Business and creative people are often motivated by quite different impulses. There doesn’t have to be conflict of course.  Having worked with some of the biggest names in the creative world – from rock stars to theatre directors – I know from long personal experience just how rewarding, enjoyable and productive good partnerships can be when you get the essentials of the relationship right.

The UK has always had a strong entrepreneurial culture to complement the strength of its artistic culture.  This combination of attributes reflecting two different forms of creativity has often proved beneficial in helping to fuse the needs of art and commerce. 

In small businesses the benefits of matching such different skill-sets are usually obvious.  However it’s often not so obvious when it comes to bigger businesses.  Here there is frequently a gulf of understanding and trust to bridge - between finance and investment on one side, and creativity on the other. 

As a young partner in one of the major accounting firms I could see the growing importance of talent to business and therefore took a very conscious decision to learn everything possible about the entertainment world - how the relevant bits of the legal system worked, how the commercial side of things worked, and most importantly how the creative process itself worked. I read up on all the technical stuff and but also spent time with some very talented individuals from film, theatre, music and television learning about their aspirations and concerns.  After that it was much easier for me to talk business with artists, managers and entertainment entrepreneurs so as to understand what was important to them and so help them to attain their commercial objectives.

Partnership is the key, particularly in an ever more competitive and complex media environment.  First there is the initial partnership between the creative artist and the entrepreneur.  Later on, when the entrepreneur wants to grow the business, another kind of partnership is called for – a partnership between the entrepreneur and a more experienced businessman or woman, someone for example who has a mastery of the financial markets.

The most successful partnerships are the ones that link a truly creative person – whether artistically or entrepreneurially creative - with a strong business person. It’s a waste of time, frankly, to expect a creative genius to become a skilled business type as well.  And conversely, a businessman or woman can never really become a truly creative person in the fullest sense, meaning someone with exceptional flair and originality. Of course we can all learn more about each other’s strengths and skill-sets, and it’s important to make this effort to get mutual recognition and respect.  But there are clear limitations on both sides. 
Entrepreneurs are visionaries who generally thrive in relationships with experienced business talent.  They tend to have very similar characteristics to creative and artistic people.  But it is a mistake to assume that all entrepreneurs are necessarily good at business. 

At the Really Useful Group my relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber was essentially a marriage of creative and business skills – a kind of model partnership.  As long as there is clear empathy, real understanding and mutual respect for each other’s talents and abilities, then there’s no limit to what can be achieved.  This arrangement allows the individual with extraordinary creative talent to be able to concentrate completely on being creative, knowing that the money and business side of things is being taken care of.

This is not to say that creative people shouldn’t be interested in commerce – far from it.  What it means is that creative individuals in such partnerships are freer to focus on what they are best at and most interested in.

Everything we do at Ingenious is fundamentally based on this idea of partnership – it’s all about acting as a bridge between media and creativity on one side, and business and finance on the other.  We try to be sympathetic to the insights and needs of both parties.  Much of it is to do with that word experience. You need to have an exceptionally deep knowledge and understanding of progressive media and the creative economy to understand its particular “box-office” risk characteristics, to be able to execute this bridge-building function successfully.

Partnership is a two way street of course.  Sometimes creative people are not necessarily keen on full collaboration, influenced perhaps by their earlier choices of business or investment partner.  But for things to work to mutual advantage, partners on the creative side do need to be engaged with the commercial process, which means understanding the requirements of financiers as well as managing the expectations of the other partners.

People with creative talent are often shielded from the expectations of business by their relationships with managers or entrepreneurial partners, and this is no bad thing.  In such cases it is absolutely necessary for the entrepreneur to be able to balance the needs and expectations of all the interested parties.  This in turn means that they have to be more sophisticated in their interactions with the world of finance.

Building strong partnerships between business and creativity ultimately provides artists and their managers with more options. It helps them build better and bigger platforms on which to show off their talent, allows them to retain greater control over their “IP” and thereby hold onto a bigger slice of the commercial pie.
One common ingredient to success in the games, publishing, television, music and film industries, is of course great people. This may sound obvious but believe me spotting talent, whether creative or entrepreneurial talent, is by no means easy.  You can become a business hero in the entertainment world almost overnight if you can successfully identify and align yourself with an extraordinary new talent. But it’s easy to get it wrong.

All countries have their own distinctive cultures.  We are awash with creative talent in the UK, but we don’t have a culture of taking the creative industries seriously as businesses, unlike the USA.  This goes back to the education system.  There’s a lot of emphasis these days in our great art colleges on getting creative people to learn about the basics of business and entrepreneurship.  What I don’t see much of is evidence of students in business schools and on finance courses at universities being taught about the distinctive characteristics of the media and cultural industries and of the creative process.

It’s not surprising therefore that top quality business talent is rarely attracted to the creative economy sector.  There are business graduates out there who are well educated, have a choice about what kind of business to go into but generally don’t choose the creative industries because they see them as being uncertain, more about luck than judgment, or generally “flaky”, with the rewards going predominantly to “the creatives”. 

In the UK we need more investors, financiers and business folk to understand the creative process.  There is still a big gulf, generally speaking, between the worlds of creativity on the one hand, and finance and business on the other.  This is damaging to the overall prospects of the creative economy.  From an investor point of view, it is clear to me that if business people were more engaged in the creative process, understood it better and could see it working up close and personal early on, they would stand a better chance of recognising good business and investment opportunities.
 
Creative talent is highly mobile and UK creative talent is particularly attractive to global companies. Whilst this isn’t a bad thing in itself, we must build greater business capacity within our own creative industries so that the UK can benefit from the commercial opportunities generated by our writers, producers, musicians and other artists.  We should aim to retain more of the economic ownership of UK creativity, rather than seeing so much of the commercial upside disappearing to the USA and elsewhere.

To do that we need to build creative industry business capacity in the UK. The way to do that is by starting with small and medium-sized businesses, helping them with business and management expertise, helping them to grow sustainably and persuading them not to sell out to the first trade buyer who comes along. 

We also need to educate the financial and wider business communities to have a better understanding of the business opportunities being generated by the exciting new world of digital media.  There’s been a lot of talk about value destruction and collapsing business models, but there are also some fantastic opportunities out there if you know how to recognize them.

If we can make progress on these fronts we have the possibility of establishing a virtuous circle, where great creativity is matched by great business talent, which is matched by sustainable investment, which in turn helps generate profits and attracts better people and yet more investment, and so on.  This is a prize worth aiming for!

TV content growth brings urgency to IP protection

Valerie | 08 Oct 2009, 20:43

While the global recession is hitting the TV industry hard, the format business appears to be faring well, with new research unveiled by FRAPA  (Format Recognition and Protection Assn)  at the MIPCOM event in Cannes revealing that the volume of production on the back of traded formats has exploded into a €9.3bn industry from 2006-2008.

In total, 445 global original formats were exported from 2006 to 2008, with British formats accounting for 146 of these. The survey of the world’s 14 biggest format exporting countries identified the U.S., Denmark, Norway and Sweden as the biggest format exporters after the UK, driven by such formats as “Big Brother,“ “Hole in the Wall” and “Got Talent.“

Against a broader backdrop of significant structural changes, as the TV industry grapples with the challenge of convincing consumers to pay for new services, content production is expected to stay relatively stable. The US, currently ranked as the leading content producing nation today will retain this position over the next five years despite strong growth from UK and India, according to a separate international content trend survey by Global Media Consult.

As IPTV and internet-enabled devices start challenging the dominance of the traditional broadcast business model, an opportunity will be available for all players that are ready to act flexibly, creatively and to anticipate – and respond – to consumer demand. And the need for intellectual property protection will become all the clearer and greater.

Smaller creative businesses and individuals as well as global brands must fit into c&binet

C&binet | 08 Oct 2009, 11:50

C&binet comment: Ben Bradshaw, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

What do Lily Allen and Peter Mandelson have in common? They both featured in questions that I unfortunately didn’t have time to answer in my hour-long webchat on the Number 10 website last Monday.

At a rough average of four minutes for reading, thinking and typing time per question, I managed to respond to 13 questions – but that amounted to only a fraction of the number that came in.

My thanks to everyone who contributed – and my apologies to those that I didn’t have time for. Rest assured, the c&binet team have access to the log of questions and will feed them into the thinking for c&binetforum.

One thing that the webchat did forcefully remind me of, was how important it is we keep front-of-mind the interests of the individuals and small businesses that a make up the vast majority of the creative economic community.

C&binet is – and has to be – as much a forum for individual technicians, illustrators and musicians as it is for NBC Universal, Virgin Media or Google.

In clearing spectrum to make way for next generation mobile services, what are the consequences for the equipment used by sound engineers or small venues? How do we make the support structures of government less remote to small scale outfits – as Alan Mcglone asks in the comments to my earlier blog below?  How do we make sure we are weighing all the potential consequences – for creativity as well as revenue – when we look to modify rules for a changing world?

I for one don’t agree that pub rock is dying as a consequence of the smoking ban, as Mickey Flynn commented on my last posting – but Mickey, I do pay tribute - not just to your military service, but to your entrepreneurial use of this blog to promote your music!

UK online ad spend overtakes TV for the first time

Valerie | 02 Oct 2009, 16:46

The latest figures published by media agency Carat indicates that the UK ad market is not expected to recover until 2010.

Carat has significantly revised its March forecasts, which predicted a 7.1 per cent drop for the UK and a 5.8 per cent fall globally. The new forecast now predicts a decline of almost 12%. TV advertising will fall by 12% this year; radio by 12.6%; outdoor by 12.2%; and the newspaper and magazine sectors by 20% and 16% respectively.

This follows the news this week that the UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.

Whilst this may mark a milestone for the “embattled TV industry” as the leading ad medium in the UK for almost half a century, critics have pointed out that it is inaccurate to collate all the figures as if it is one single medium.

Despite the gloomy picture for the UK, Carat said it expects growth of 1% in 2010, driven by more stable conditions in the West and a recovery in developing markets, particularly China.  France, Canada and the U.K. Russia, and Japan were also cited as countries that will see a return to growth in advertising expenditure next year.

As the Wall Street Journal indicates, opinions vary among advertising executives as to when and to what extent growth will return to the advertising industry.

As E-consultancy notes, these are interesting times for advertisers, agencies and publishers/media companies, highlighting the questions that now remain about just how far online advertising can go and the main opportunities for growth going forwards – key issues for the future of the creative economy that will be addressed at the c&binet forum next month.