New forms of digital delivery offer both promise and threat to filmmakers. Many ambitious predictions have been made about the impact of the internet. But how much is real and how much is hype? What are the future business models? And, most importantly, where will Australian content be in this new media landscape?"
Photo by Angelo Kehagias courtesy of ASDA
About the course
The AFTRS Centre for Screen Business and Australian Screen Directors Association presents an exciting national seminar series: Business Models for Digital Distribution. These one-day workshops are designed to provide content creators with a practical guide to the current and future business models for monetising online audio visual content.
The focus is on what content is pulling the money in and what models are being used to make that money.
There will be a number of case studies, including the phenomenally successful Australian production The Secret, which will reveal how the producers used online distribution to maximise their revenue share.
One participant from each course will be given the opportunity to present their project to a panel of experts for feedback and guidance.
Business Models for Digital Distribution is a half-day or one-day workshop (it will vary from state to state) designed to provide content creators with a practical guide to the current and future business models for distributing and monetising online audio visual content.
The focus is on the business models for digital distribution and monetising content: what content is pulling the money in? This seminar is not about the technology or platforms.
Online distribution is a vital issue for content creators - don't miss this opportunity to get on top of it.
Topics
- Do business models for conventional content forms map on to business models for emerging content forms? What new models are emerging? Who's doing what, who's is paying for what?
- The challenges of managing rights in a digital environment
- Existing online distribution projects and their business models
- How to select a model and apply it to different projects
Presenters
The course director for this series is ASDA Executive Director Richard Harris, who is due to release his new book Film in the Age of Digital Distribution to coincide with this series. All participants will receive a FREE copy of Richard's book.
Richard will be joined by leading industry experts including Paul Budde, Rob Antulov, Jennifer Wilson, Rachel Dixon, Paul Harrington and others. Speaker biographies are available at the bottom of this page.
Objectives
By the end of the seminar, participants should be able to:
- identify the various business models for monetisation of content online
- analyse existing online media projects and identify the business models behind them
- apply selected strategies to their own projects
- select a the models that are applicable to their work
Participant feedback
- 'It was like attending a mini LAMP'
- 'Better than AIDC'
- 'very interesting and helpful'
- 'It was very good!'
- 'an extremely well-organised, informative and enlightening day'
- 'I go to many seminars and courses across a range of topics and last Tuesday was certainly... great value for money.'
- 'very informative and interesting'
- 'I really enjoyed yesterday’s seminar. It was really packed with great people and info.'
Case studies
The following file contains a thorough list of digital distribution services and providers. We have gathered all the information you need to know about each provider: what content they distribute and how their business model works.
Downloads
- Jennifer Wilson from HWW, Social networks and new media, 866kb PDF
- Jennifer Wilson from HWW, Business models for digital distribution explained, 121kb PDF
- Ross Dawson, Web 2.0 Framework, 714kb PDF
- Ross Dawson, Future of Media Strategic Framework, 294kb PDF
- Paul Budde from www.budde.com.au, Digital Distribution, 201kb PDF
- A longer look at the long tail, June 2007 Bear Stearns report (396kb PDF)
Media
About the book
The Policy Papers series is published by Currency House. Issue 12: Film in the Age of Digital Distribution by Richard Harris is available now. The book was launched by Robert Connolly at the Chauvel Cinema on 11 April 2007.
Speaker biographies
Jennifer Wilson
Jennifer Wilson is currently Managing Director of HWW, a specialist content aggregation, syndication and digital publishing company.
Jennifer has been described as “one of the best minds in the mobile business. She is well known as a respected voice for her in-depth analysis of the digital content industry, and is also highly regarded for her unique ability to build complex content delivery systems that not only work, but are simple and easy to use.” (Christina Thurn, Walt Disney Internet Group). Jennifer is seen as the driving force behind HWW’s high profile in the mobile and online market and is consistently rated as one of the top thinkers and speaker on community, social networking and convergent mobile content. She was recently included in a B&T list of the 40 Biggest Players of Australia’s Digital Age.
Jennifer has more than 20 years in interactive communications and digital marketing, having worked in the UK at BT on the creation of the first interactive voice response systems, delivering share prices, news and weather; moving to internet and web based information services and then to mobile as a convergent platform for interactive consumer services.
More recently, Jennifer has been working on ensuring that social networking and community tools are made available across the HWW sites, both online and mobile. These include recommendations and referrals; user-generated content; virally shared sites and user lists based on reviews and ratings. Jennifer is committed to converged solutions for consumers and in soft personalisation – using behaviour to determine how best to provide an unobtrusive, personalised experience that is tailored to each consumer.
Jennifer also sits on the National Executive of the AIMIA.
Richard Harris
Richard Harris has been the Executive Director of the Australian Screen Directors Association for the past eight years. Prior to this he was the Policy and Research Manager at the Screen Producers Association of Australia. He previously worked at the AFTRS and University of Sydney in a series of publishing, policy research and curriculum development roles.
During his time at ASDA, Richard has undertaken a number of associated industry roles. Most recently, in 2006, he was seconded from ASDA to act as the Project Manager for the newly formed Australian Screen Council, a body aimed at providing the film industry with a coherent united front to Government.
Richard was similarly seconded in 2003 to assist in the development of the International Affiliation of English-Speaking Directors Organisations and was appointed its inaugural coordinator, running its secretariat from 2003-2005.
In 2003 Richard also helped form and acted as a Convenor of the Australian Coalition for Cultural Diversity, a cross-arts alliance specifically formed to deal with trade issues during the US FTA negotiations. Since that time he has represented the ACCD on the Liaison Committee of the International Coalition of Cultural Diversity which has been instrumental in the successful lobbying effort for the development of an international instrument on cultural diversity at UNESCO.
Richard has lectured in Media Policy at the University of Sydney. He has an Honours degree in political science from the University of NSW and was enrolled at Sydney University in a PhD focusing on broadcasting policy until he commenced at ASDA and work and family overtook his life.
Rob Antulov
Rob Antulov is co-founder and CEO of 3eep Pty Ltd, a recently launched Australian sports-oriented social network, which offers passionate sports players, fans, coaches and administrators the ability to take their real-world conversations into an online space.
Rob is also currently Executive Director at Perceptric Media Pty Ltd and operates a strategic advisory practice, MediaNext, offering guidance to companies, from early stage to corporate, on issues associated with convergence in media and technology.
Until recently Rob was Director of Strategy at Fairfax Media Ltd, responsible for Fairfax’s corporate direction on strategic growth, media convergence and digital expansion. He was a key member of the team that assessed corporate opportunities in media sectors including newspapers, magazines, free-to-air television, digital and traditional radio, online classifieds, Pay TV, datacasting and IPTV.
Prior to that Rob was Chief Commercial Officer for Peakhour, a pioneering Internet services company in Australia, directing overall commercial strategy as well as partner relationships. Earlier, Coca Cola recognised his management talent with VP roles in marketing and strategy in their Central and Eastern European regions, after holding other executive roles in Australia and the Asia Pacific region. At Booz Allen Hamilton, Rob consulted with leading Australian industrial companies, developing operational strategies and assisting in due diligence of acquisition targets.
Rob has an MBA from the AGSM, which he completed at the Kellogg Graduate School of Business, at Northwestern University in Chicago, and also holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree from the University of Western Australia. Rob is currently a Director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and has been a Director of a number of public, private and not-for-profit organisations.
Rachel Dixon
In conjunction with many years as an award-winning filmmaker, Rachel has been a developer, publisher and marketer of interactive media since 1993, when she formed the New Media Division of the national film and television house, Film Australia. After a year working for a San-Francisco-based startup that didn't, she made an ill-considered move to be Head of Marketing with the Australian Multimedia Enterprise.
In early 1997 Rachel left the AME and formed Handshake Media Pty Ltd, one arm of which is a consultancy advising on strategic development and marketing in new media, I.T. and telecommunications. She advises several publishers, I.T. companies, interactive media developers and government agencies, in areas as diverse as telecommunications, new media arts, and film and television development and financing.
With the production arm of Handshake Media Rachel is still active in feature film production. Her most recent film was "Risk", starring Bryan Brown, Claudia Karvan and Tom Long. "Risk" premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2000. Handshake Media currently has several other films in development with local and international partners.
Rachel is also a founding Director of FIBRE Pty Ltd, Chair of Metro Screen Ltd (www.metroscreen.com.au) and a member of the National Executive of the Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association. She is a past director of several other government and private sector multimedia organisations.
Rachel has published one book and several chapters in anthologies on the business of interactive media, writes occasional columns for various magazines, and is a frequent speaker on technology and culture at seminars and conferences in Australia and the USA.
