Digital Channels Conference 2008
The 2008 Digital Channels Conference, organised by Broadcast magazine in association with ASTRA, was held this month at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
The conference was well attended and enthusiastically praised by the delegates, with many once again saying that it was the best event in the industry’s conference calendar.
The two-day programme brought together some of the top executives from UK digital broadcasting to discuss the current climate and debate some of the key issues facing the industry.
The keynote addresses on day one were given by Brian Sullivan, BSkyB customer group MD and Jonathan Webb, MD of Virgin Media Television.
Brian talked about the company’s digital strategies and its approach to customer service, and Jonathan outlined his plans to turn Virgin 1 into one of the strongest channel brands in satellite television.
Then broadcaster and journalist, Andrew Neil, took to the stage to share his vision of the future of digital television. He was expected to be controversial, and he didn’t disappoint.
His speech covered a number of areas including the importance of HDTV and high-speed broadband, and the need to find accurate ways of measuring viewing audiences regardless of how the content was delivered.
He also explained why he believed that the days of traditional spot advertising were numbered.
His speech was followed by a particulary lively panel discussion, moderated by Conor Dignam, the former editor of Broadcast and now Emap Inform’s Digital Content Director.
Andrew debated the points raised by his speech with our own Mike Chandler; blinkbox CEO, Michael Comish; and BSkyB’s Robert Webster.
Andrew’s speech and the follow-up discussion were widely seen as one of the main conference highlights.
ITV2’s contoller, Zai Bennett, described how the station had been turned into an award-winning channel with a distinct identity and young audience profile; and David Abraham, CEO of UKTV, discussed the progress of his channel in the last 12 months.
Next up, Matt Tombs of Paramount Comedy gave some interesting insights into how the channel built a pay TV hit out of the US comedy import, Two and a half men.
The first day concluded with Simon Crine from Digital UK and Simon Gauntlett of DTG giving presentations on the lessons learned so far from the digital switch over and their thoughts about the future progress of this crucial event.
The keynote speeches on day two were given by Roly Keating, the controller of BBC Two, and Dan Brooke, the MD of Discovery Networks UK.
Roly gave a highly engaging presentation on the BBC’s digital strategy, and Dan talked about how the Discovery channel had re-invented itself and provided fascinating insights into some of their documentaries.
Simon Pentlands from Deloitte, presented some very interesting research on television viewing trends, and this was followed by another lively panel discussion.
The afternoon sessions included an interview with BBC Three controller, Danny Cohen; a presentation on the recently-launched Freesat service from the company’s MD, Emma Scott; and Channel 4’s Cosmo Lush and Anthony Rose from the BBC discussed programme making for the download generation.