Is Video The New Black?
Fashion’s come and go; one day you’re in and the next day you’re out. The industry has adopted many guises and the term “broadcast” has always existed to encapsulate what it is that we do. But like dodgy perms and shoulder pads “broadcast” has had its day. What we have found tricky and so it would seem have others is how do we sum up the industry? What term do we use?
This conversation has been doing the rounds at Jump HQ and has come up for serious discussion on three recent occasions. The first was while in the planning phase of our new website. We used to describe ourselves as a broadcast PR agency. But we no longer work solely in the broadcast industry. Or perhaps more pertinently, broadcast is one part of what our clients do with the variety and reach of non-linear services growing by the day. We put the kettle on (several times) and debated long and hard.
The second occasion was at the IABM annual conference held in early December in the UK. Here a panel session, involving Naomi Klein (Sony) and David Ross (of Ross Video fame), among others, came to discuss this very issue. It was Ross who explained that as far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter whether revenues were coming from YouTube, Netflix (you can fill in other names here) or broadcasters of all shapes and sizes. Ross Video is doing as well as ever – in fact better according to Ross – because its customer base has spread and they are active. The conclusion here was that the key word is “video”.
This was also our conclusion as it was in the third instance when we were discussing plans with a client. Video is what unites us. Yes, there are nasty 1980s video recorder connotations (in a similar way that the word “turbo” had so much prominence then) but video is the key word.
So we’re joining the revolution and declaring video is the new black.