Doug Craig is responsible for programming Discovery Communications’ VOD and mobile TV services, and also oversees the creation of short-form content for those services, and for the company’s broadband channels. He recently spoke to [itvt]’s Tracy Swedlow about re-purposing and "pre-purposing" traditional TV programming for mobile TV; about the company’s recently launched "VOD 2.0" strategy, which, among other things, sees it offering more short-form content on its cable VOD service; about the ways in which the user-generated content phenomenon is influencing Discovery’s linear TV programming; about the company’s interest in allowing its viewers to create their own documentaries out of its archival footage; and more.
[itvt]: Could you tell us a little about your role at Discovery, Doug?
Craig: A major part of my job is programming content for all of our VOD platforms and our mobile platforms. I oversee short-form content creation for these platforms, and for our broadband channels as well. In the mobile category, we have mobile streaming channels that we launched in August of 2005, and we also have Discovery Mobile, a dedicated mobile channel that we launched in September of 2006. We also offer, on a VOD basis, a lot of individual clips for the mobile platform.
[itvt]: Why is your mobile TV offering "three-pronged"–i.e. a dedicated mobile channel; mobile streaming regular channels; and VOD clips?
Craig: Because we’re exploring all kinds of programming options on mobile to determine what resonates most with consumers.
[itvt]: As I recall, your mobile services are available on MobiTV, correct? Where else are they available?
Craig: Yes. Right now, MobiTV carries five of our streaming linear feeds, in addition to our dedicated mobile channel: Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery Kids and Discovery Español. And we also provide them with individual VOD clips. Discovery Mobile is also available on amp’d and on SmartVideo, and we also supply amp’d with individual clips.
[itvt]: How important is mobile TV to Discovery? Is it a major part of your programming strategy?
Craig: We see mobile TV as a perfect complement to our over-the-air and our online offerings. We want people to be able to access our great content from wherever they are. Whether they’re on the couch, in front of their computer monitor, or on the go, they can access our content on their terms. We use the catchline, "Putting the world of Discovery in the palm of your hand." It’s really giving people the opportunity to consume more content at their convenience, and it drives people back to "the mother ship," our television networks.
[itvt]: How are your mobile TV offerings being received by consumers?
Craig: It’s only been a few months since we launched our mobile channel, so we really haven’t seen a lot of metrics. Right now, we have anecdotal feedback from our partners, emails we receive from consumers, and so forth. We are actually soliciting our viewers to email or text-message us their thoughts about what we’re doing. We’re asking them questions like, "Where are you watching Discovery Mobile?," "What would you like to see more of?," "What do you like and what don’t you like?," "Does it make you tune in to one of our TV channels?," and so on.
Part of the reason we’re doing this is in order to build a sense of community around the offering. But it’s also because it’s hard to get a lot of metrics right now. Any anecdotal information is valuable.
[itvt]: Why is it hard to get metrics?
Craig: There are a couple of reasons. If you look at the number of consumers who are consuming video on their mobile phones, it’s still a relatively small percentage. However, everything that we’ve seen from a lot of different industry sources seems to suggest that you’re going to see a huge increase in three to five years from now. Our belief is that the hockey-stick growth curve, so to speak, is really going to kick in around 2009 or 2010. We believe that the percentage of people consuming videos on mobile phones is going to grow.
Another reason that metrics for mobile TV offerings are so hard to come by is that there are no uniform reporting standards or bodies out there: there’s no Nielsen and there’s no Rentrak to provide a unified approach to reporting usage. There are no standard, industry-accepted metrics with common measuring currencies such as ratings points or shares.
[itvt]: So you can’t say at this point whether your programming is proving most successful on MobiTV, amp’d or SmartVideo, correct?
Craig: No. Though we’ve received very positive feedback from consumers across all of our distribution partners, and we’re looking forward to getting more detailed information. MobiTV has indicated that our networks are among the most popular and most viewed.
[itvt]: How much original mobile content are you producing–or adapting from your regular linear TV programming?
Craig: We are producing a great deal of short-form content based on our regular TV programming. Our goal is to drive viewers to our TV channels and broaden our appeal.
[itvt]: Which of your linear channels are you adapting content from for your mobile channel, and how do you decide which programming to adapt?
Craig: We’re pulling content from all of our networks for this. When we select and package content for the mobile channel, we do this with a more youthful audience in mind. Judging by everything that we’ve seen on people who consume a lot of video on their mobile phones, they tend to be a little bit younger-skewing and a little bit more male-skewing than the population at large. So we definitely tilt in those directions, in terms of which content from our various networks we put up on our mobile channel. What’s nice is that we have so many different networks to pull from, so it’s really not a challenge to find appropriate content. We hope people will sample on mobile and then tune in to our linear TV networks.
[itvt]: Do you have any plans to launch your mobile TV offerings on any other platforms–for example, Verizon’s V Cast?
Craig: We are in conversations with all the major carriers, including cable operators.
[itvt]: We should also probably mention that Discovery offers content on Sky’s mobile TV service in the UK…
Craig: Yes. We’re definitely on Sky Mobile in the UK–though I don’t work directly on that project. We actually share a fair amount of mobile content with our colleagues in our European office, who–I should add–have been at this a little longer than we have. So–where appropriate and when it makes sense–we use some of the mobile content that they create or adapt and they use some of the content that we create or adapt.
[itvt]: Could you talk about some of the challenges involved in developing content for mobile TV?
Craig: There are really three different types of production models for mobile TV content. The first is re-purposing content: by that, I mean going back into our library and editing existing content into a format that’s suitable for mobile.
The second is what you might call "pre-purposing" content. By that, I mean where we work in parallel with productions for the linear networks. So, throughout the shooting of "Planet Earth," for example, we’re getting content–ancillary content–that isn’t necessarily going to be used in the linear show itself, but that is content that works very well for mobile. It might, for example, be a behind-the-scenes interview with a cameraperson or something like that. When we pre-purpose content, we try to capture it in a format or framing that’s appropriate for mobile.
Then the third type of production model is what we call "original." As the term suggests, that’s where we go out and create content that’s made-for-mobile, that’s not directly tied to one of our linear television shows, but that still fits within our brand. Obviously, when we’re shooting made-for-mobile content, we capture it in a format that’s appropriate for a small screen.
The re-purposing production model is really the most difficult, as you might expect. What we basically have to do is go through a show and look for those shots that are really well lit, that have tight close-ups, and things like that. We also do a lot of center cuts, because it just isn’t practical to have those long, sweeping panoramic shots on a mobile phone. They just lose their impact. We have a term that I use a lot: "light-and-tight." By that, I mean what I was just referring to: that, when re-purposing existing content for mobile TV, we tend to prefer well-lit shots with a lot of tight framing. That way, when someone’s watching it on the palm of their hand, they feel that they’re being pulled in, rather than just having a sit-back-and-watch experience.
[itvt]: Do you have any observations as to the kind of programming that seems to work best on mobile TV?
Craig: People are naturally drawn to strong brands and, of course, to strong television shows. So we are leveraging our well-known brands and shows to offer consumers more of what they enjoy on our networks. However, we also try to introduce them to new programming, and to offer them a unique experience with exclusive made-for-mobile content.
[itvt]: Now, when you shoot made-for-mobile content, or "pre- purposed" content parallel with a linear production, are you also considering how you can use that content for your broadband TV services?
Craig: Yes. Quite often, we’re trying to capture and edit stuff once, and then use it on as many platforms as possible. Other times, we make something specifically for mobile–perhaps a completely original production–that will eventually end up on broadband as well.
[itvt]: Now that you’re offering content on new platforms such as mobile TV and broadband TV, are your various productions now planning and budgeting for this multiplatform delivery from the start?
Craig: Absolutely. We’re just now starting to emerge from what you might call catch-up mode. A typical documentary can take anywhere from nine to 18 months to shoot. And, when you factor in all the development and the pre-production, sometimes it can be up to a two-year process from the time you greenlight a project until it finally hits the air. So there have been a lot of things in production that were greenlit over a year ago, when we weren’t thinking about what kind of ancillary content we might need for mobile or broadband–we’ve only been doing mobile and broadband for a relatively short period of time.
But now that Discovery is committed to offering content on mobile and broadband–and VOD too–we participate in the reviews that determine whether a show is going to be greenlit for our linear networks or not. Basically what we do is say, "Hey, if you guys are going to create this show, here’s what we could really use out of it, in terms of making a mobile, a broadband or a VOD offering out of it. Let’s think ahead of the game and pre-purpose some of this stuff."
And what we’re finding is that by pre-purposing content in this way–and I should make clear that we compensate our filmmakers for all the extra work this involves–we get richer mobile and broadband content, and it just leads to a better overall consumer experience. It’s a little like with DVD’s: these days, you don’t just get to watch the movie itself; there are all of these great "extras"–so making-of footage, deleted scenes, director’s commentaries, things like that. That’s not dissimilar to the approach we take when we complement our linear programs with all this short-form content that runs on mobile or on our broadband players.
Also, we find that when we work further ahead on this ancillary mobile, VOD and broadband content–in other words work on it in parallel with a linear TV production–it’s simply a more efficient model. If you try to re-purpose content after the fact, you’re basically confined to working with what has already been captured. And, when you have to do that, it is sometimes quite tricky to piece compelling content together.
[itvt]: We’ve talked a lot about your responsibilities at Discovery for mobile TV. What are your other responsibilities?
Craig: I’m also responsible for VOD. We actually put VOD into two categories: one category is cable VOD, where we’re working with MSO partners like Comcast, Cox and Charter; and the other one is what we call non-cable VOD. So that’s thing’s like iTunes and Amazon Unbox. I oversee both those VOD categories for Discovery from a programming and scheduling standpoint.
Then, on the production side, I oversee short-form content production for mobile, for VOD, and for broadband. I have a team of around eight people that work on short-form content-creation–that could be anything from re-purposing linear TV productions to shooting originals.
[itvt]: How many broadband TV services is Discovery currently offering?
Craig: There are seven altogether: there’s Discovery Channel Beyond, TLC Beyond, Animal Planet Beyond, Travel Beyond, Discovery Health Beyond, TURBO and our Google Earth broadband channel which is tied to the Google Earth interface.
[itvt]: Is the content on those broadband channels similar to the content on your mobile channel?
Craig: At times, it can be very similar. Again, what we generally try to do is produce something once and use it on as many platforms as possible. That being said, for big promotables such as "Shark Week," "Atlas," and the upcoming "Planet Earth," we try to offer differentiated content on each of our various platforms.
Using "Shark Week" as an example: we had very robust offerings on the VOD platform–both long-form shows from years past, and a lot of short-form content. On the mobile side, we had a lot of short-form content, and on the broadband side we also had a lot of short-form content. But each of those three platforms had some content that wasn’t available anywhere else–even though there were also some clips that they all shared.
[itvt]: You have content for cable VOD, content for iTunes, for Amazon Unbox, for the Web, for mobiles, and so on. How do you store and manage all this content?
Craig: One of the things that’s been a lot of fun to do over the past year or so, as we’ve become more aggressive in creating all this short-form content, has been figuring out how to store it and share it.
The first rule that we set up for ourselves was to go completely tape-less. We’ve created a fairly robust file-serving infrastructure here for all this short-form content, and we’re doing everything in Final Cut Pro. We’ve tapped into our great IT team to set up an infrastructure for sharing content. We have an internal system that actually can help publish all this content to our broadband players. As a company that has its roots in long-form programming, we’ve found ourselves breaking some rules and being a little bit more flexible when it comes to storing and publishing short-form content. When you’re dealing with short-form content for mobile and broadband, the file sizes just aren’t that big. So we’ve moved to this server environment, and it’s been a great way to speed the process and also save money.
[itvt]: How much programming are you offering on cable VOD these days?
Craig: Right now, it’s approximately a 75-hour package, and it’s representative of programming from all of our networks. In addition, we offer some VOD content from our Hispanic networks, and we also recently rolled out HD VOD offerings with Comcast, which we hope to expand to our other distribution partners in the future.
[itvt]: How are your cable VOD offerings doing?
Craig: Well, this past October, we launched what we call our VOD 2.0 offering. We actually just received some preliminary numbers, which show a more than 50% increase in usage year-over-year, and we expect that percentage to only increase once we have all the reporting. We continue to have a very positive outlook on VOD. We think it’s a great complement to our linear networks.
[itvt]: What is your VOD 2.0 offering?
Craig: When we launched our VOD service back in the fall of 2004, the idea was primarily to offer a sample of programming from across all of our networks. It was a very broad experience. You might see one episode of a show like "Dirty Jobs." It was very much a sampling of what we considered to be the best stuff on our networks–though, every once in a while, we might have put a little extra content up for a stunt or something like that.
Now, when we were developing our VOD 2.0 offering, we said: "Okay. Let’s think about consolidating our efforts in such a way that we don’t always offer just all long-form programming." So, we definitely still had the 75-hour package of full-length programming that I just mentioned–which translates roughly into 75 hour-long shows being available on the service at any one time. But what we started to do was to offer more short-form content, including behind-the-scenes coverage, and to offer more in the way of sneak-peeks of upcoming specials or series–so, again, to offer a little bit more of this DVD "extra"-type content.
We’re also offering a greater depth of programming. So, let’s say the next season of "MythBusters" is coming out: we might put two, three or four episodes up, to really help promote the show’s new season. We have also had good successes with building special content areas to support major network events such as "Shark Week" and "Atlas," and we’ll be doing the same with the upcoming "Planet Earth" in March. We’ve also done some more "utility-type" short-form content in the areas served by our Health, Travel and Animal Planet networks. By "utility content," I mean more informational stuff. For example, for Discovery Health, we have this whole VOD category called Discovery Health On-Call. It doesn’t have that much in the way of full-length programming. But what it does have is a lot of short-form content around diseases and conditions, fitness, exercise, dieting, and all those kinds of things.
So, say for example, that your wife is expecting a child: you can go there and find out what’s going on during each month of pregnancy, or get some information on child care, or tips on how to help your baby sleep better at night. This is really high-value, useful content if you’re pregnant or have a newborn: chances are, if you go there once, you’re going to go back several times. And because it’s really useful content that meets people’s actual needs, you’re probably going to tell your family and friends about it.
Also, as far as Travel Channel’s VOD presence is concerned, we’re doing a lot more on destinations. So rather than just having a full-length show from Anthony Bourdain on New York City, we might have some shorts from Anthony, where he’s talking about some of his favorite neighborhoods or favorite restaurants in New York, or other short-form content about what to do or where to stay in New York.
[itvt]: Are you embracing the user-generated content phenomenon?
Craig: That’s something that we’ve been thinking about a lot. I think the biggest concern we have with user-generated content has to do with quality. For Discovery Channel and all of our other networks, quality is at the core of everything we do. That being said, user-generated content is definitely an emerging trend that offers a lot of opportunities, and we are exploring how it makes sense for our brands and platforms.
Now one of the things that we’ve done in our efforts to embrace the user-generated content phenomenon actually started with mobile. It’s a show, called "You Are Here," where we’re using a production company that has access to an army of producers around the world. Now, these aren’t amateurs–so this isn’t user-generated content in the strict sense of the term. These are people who are professional filmmakers–but freelancers and independents. Internally, we call them "pro-amateurs."
For this show, we selected various landmarks all around the world and hired these independent filmmakers in various cities to tell their story about their city’s landmark. In San Francisco, for example, we did a piece on the cable cars. We basically selected the topic, and then we let the filmmaker tell their story about the cable cars. Now, obviously we make sure that all of their information is factually correct, that they have all of the proper production releases and insurance and so forth. But then we let the filmmaker tell their story about what this landmark means to them.
Even though these stories aren’t user-generated content in the strict sense, they are user-generated in feel. We’re not trying to impart a specific way for these people to tell their stories: we simply pick the location and subject matter, and then they take it from there and give their own take on it. So we see this as a first step to user-generated content–we just want to make sure that the quality is still there that people know and expect from us.
[itvt]: Another trend we’ve been seeing is "mash-ups"–so where a broadcaster presents viewers with existing video content on its Web site, and invites them to edit and rearrange those clips in any way they like. Have you considered offering your viewers that kind of experience?
Craig: Yes. We’ve actually been talking about that quite a bit. We have over 100,000 hours of content–luckily, based on the nature of our programming, we tend to own most of what we air. We own a lot more rights to our programming than, say, a general entertainment network would–because, frankly, we don’t have to worry about paying residuals to crocodiles and wildebeests, and things like that!
We have a fairly robust music library, as well. So we have definitely talked a lot about letting people put together their own documentaries, by giving them access to our video content, and maybe also giving them some music clips that they could use. We definitely think it would be really cool to create an environment where people could not only make their own documentary, but then maybe send links to their documentary to their friends.
[itvt]: Now, your mobile, broadband and VOD plays aren’t currently significant drivers of revenue, correct? How do you see your revenue models for your various platforms changing in the future?
Craig: Right. But obviously, as our distribution grows and the audiences scale, our expectations are that they will generate significant revenue down the road. Right now, though, our focus is on driving our linear viewership and creating incremental experiences. While our mobile play is currently a subscription model, I think there’ll be advertising opportunities for us on that platform down the road. Broadband, we think, will definitely always be an ad-supported model.
Originally Published: February 22, 2007 in [itvt] Issue 7.20
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