BY STAN MOOTE

In the early days of broadcast , radio and television always had a transmitter to send a programme over the air to many receivers . We always referred to the radio or TV station as a broadcaster . Broadcast operations have been typically siloed : meaning “ transmission ” was separate from “ operations ”. Even on a technical level , transmitter engineers had a unique skillset . Sure , they could get involved in other technical aspects of various departments too ; however , rarely would this go the other way .

Technology brought in cable TV and satellite ; broadcasters had another method to distribute their signals , although it was still the same programming as the one that went to the TV or radio via the over-theair transmitter . Again “ transmitter ” engineers ( or RF engineers ) were required because of their unique skillset . Again , we had the transmission group running as a silo .

So why am I even discussing this ,

given our world is now becoming so reliant on the Internet for media distribution ? Well , it is simple — our in-house “ technology ” words , or labels , are causing tunnel vision within many media companies by keeping these categorisations , which in turn hurt the bottom line directly .

While the word broadcasting has come to be commonly accepted over the years as meaning ‘ oneto-many via a transmitter ’, a true definition of the term is ‘ to cast or scatter in all directions ’. As soon as video-on-demand ( VoD ) started , the model changed away from one-tomany , and guess what happened ? Transmission or RF engineers rarely got involved in the process , short of assuring that cable TV operations ’ connections were valid .

VoD was certainly never considered as broadcasting mainly because broadcasting is considered as linear programming and on-demand is , by definition , non-linear programming .

So why restrict the meaning of broadcasting ? Over-the-top ( OTT ),

or using the Internet to send video , has progressed to include live distribution of content for both radio and TV . Perhaps , it is not always 100 % as reliable as traditional transmissions , but this is rapidly changing . And still transmission engineers are out of the picture with OTT , which in turn forces two camps ( or silos ) within the organisations , one being for linear broadcasting and the other being OTT ( often called Internet Delivery ).

Media companies know it is all about content . Beyond this , I speculate that because of the word broadcasting , media companies are wasting resources , each focusing on their divisional profit and loss statements , rather than combining into a single-focus multi-platform distribution strategy .

We need to get over the mindset of broadcasting versus on-demand . Most linear programming has been well prepared and stored up on a server waiting for its time slot to be aired . Essentially , the only reason it is not on demand is purely for the

purpose of paid advertising timeslots ; whether I watch it from a transmitter ( at the appropriate time ), stream it live or see it later , it is still the same programme being ‘ broadcast ’. Many people are listening to or viewing the same single programme so it is still ‘ one-to-many ’.

The bottom line remains that content is king , not how it gets distributed . Break down the internal corporate walls between linear , nonlinear , even digital and social media too . Simply consider calling all types of programme distribution broadcasting , then everyone can get behind the same strategy and priorities — which has to be good for business .

Stan Moote has worked worldwide in the industry for more than three decades and is the CTO for IABM , International Association for Broadcast and Media Technology Suppliers . Also an APB panellist , Stan has a clear understanding of technology combined with a solid business twist . You can see many of Stan ’ s articles at theIABM . org .