Sfruttare i nuovi media
di CARTOON (European Association of Animation Film)
- Isabelle Denis, Direttrice di Mediatoon Interactive, ha svelato le strategie del suo gruppo per essere presente sulle nuove piattaforme digitali e ha spiegato perchè questo è inevitabile considerando l'evoluzione nelle abitudini di consumo.
Questo articolo è disponibile in inglese.
Isabelle Denis is the Director of Mediatoon
Interactive, the division of Mediatoon responsible
for the creation of new business opportunities
for all the Group content on different
media, such as IPTV, PCs, mobile phones
and many more using various distribution
methods, such as VOD, SVOD, free VOD, definitive
download, podcast, etc…
The Mediatoon
Interactive catalogue presents a wide range of
different cartoon and comic strip characters
known internationally. All of this content can
be adapted to different operating systems.
How did you build up Mediatoon
Interactive?
Mediatoon Interactive is part of the group Media
Participation, which is the 3rd media group in
France in terms of turnover. Under the umbrella
companies Dupuis, Dargault and Lombard in particular,
the group publishes titles such as Lucky
Luke, Spirou, Blake and Mortimer, XIII, Kid Paddle,
Papyrus, …
The group grew thanks to traditional
publishing
and then expanded into the production of
cartoons. We have a number of production companies,
specialising mainly in youth programmes
(Dupuis Audiovisuel, Ellipsanim, Storimages).
We own a vast catalogue of cartoons (1500 hours
of programmes), most of which are based on
publishing-related characters.
We believe that our products can be developed on
different platforms, such as on web sites, on Internet,
on IPTV, on mobile phones and on game consoles.
We decided to start a multimedia department
because we were in contact with most of the
industry players who were looking for the rights
to the series. We decided to specialise so as to communicate
with them and the new players.
Today, there are 313 million Internet users in
Europe, 389 million in Asia and 232 million in
the U.S. There are 3.3 million IPTV subscribers in
Europe, of which 1.5 million are in France. By 2010,
we estimate that there will be 26 million IPTV subscribers. 82%
of 12-15 year-olds have a laptop. 49%
of the 8-11 year-olds and 33% of the 5-9 year-olds
have one. These children will start to download
video content as soon as the telecom companies
offer unlimited rates.
Young people watch more and more content on
the computer usage is in the process of moving towards mobile
phones and computers.
What type of products do you offer online?
We have developed a flash tool which allows users
to read comic strips online, by zooming onto the
images if need be.
We also have a games catalogue which was initially
developed for marketing needs and which we
now commercialise in partnership with portals.
We also have a service of Video on Demand. It is
important to note that in France, 90% of sales of
VOD are made on IPTV and not on Internet.
We also offer download-to-own, by which the
content can be downloaded and viewed on different
systems.
Just recently we have launched a free VOD service,
which is financed by advertising (in this case, an
advert for Disneyland Paris). The free VOD works
quite well. For example, for the series «Cédric»,
we had 300,000 views in 2 months. It is a viral
phenomenon! Children exchange the web site
address to share their favourite episodes with
their friends. The free VOD is an effective way to
combat piracy. Obviously for a 26 x 26’ series, we
will not put all 26 episodes on line. We will «sacrifice
» 2 or 3 episodes, which will redirect users to
the IPTV or to the pay VOD.
Do you have products for the very young?
We have developed a web site for the younger
children called «Kid Studio». It is like a town for
children where they have numerous activities:
they can read comic strips, watch films and play. Once they sign on, the system saves their information,
the pages they visited, their favourite films
and the games they played.
What is the business model of the web site?
The web site is available on subscription. «Kid
Studio» is accessible via the Orange and AOL portals,
which created a partnership in a number of
countries to develop the site. We are responsible
for updating the data and introducing new elements
every week (approximately 25% reloads per
week). The subscription costs 5 euros per month
and allows 4 children to access the web site.
How did you develop the IPTV offer?
We work with all the Belgian and French Internet
operators. We supply the content, either for a unit
price or for a fixed rate of 5 euros per month.
Do you work with mobile operators?
Yes, what we have developed is very interesting. We chose series that were particularly suited to
the mobile world. We made animated gifs, logos
and ringtones, and we developed an application
that allows you to read a comic strip on your
mobile phone (I-Kartoon). We are also developing
games for the mobile phone.
The business model consists in choosing a
telephone operator and supplying them with
short format videos. We have also developed a
television channel called «Cartoons» that can be
accessed in France on the One Mobile TV-bundle. The content is easily exportable and adaptable to
other languages. The mobile market is still in its
early stages.
Who do we find in the value chain?
The consumer is at the end of the line. The operator
«dialogues» with the consumer. The operator
is an aggregator or, more and more, a television
channel that plays the role of aggregator. Finally,
we have the distributor and the assignee. Up to
now, Mediatoon positioned itself as distributor:
we held the rights and the content. The catalogue
included videos, series and games, which were
commercialised via aggregators or television channels
to operators. In this case, the end consumer
pays 100 euros and the assignee receives income
of 21 euros.
Today, Mediatoon would like to fill two roles: distributor
and aggregator, and take just one commission. We
would transfer to the producer (who
is part of our group) 35 euros out of the 100 euros
paid by the consumer.
We decided to put this strategy in place because
we have producers in our group who have received
offers for their content.
What is your policy in relation to televisions?
Which VOD rights do you cede?
We negotiate very carefully the transfer of rights
to television channels. Over the past 5 to 6 years,
the channels systematically ask for the VOD rights,
but generally they do not use them. Mediatoon
has set up a careful strategy. We transfer the VOD
rights to the channels, but not exclusively, either
for catch-up TV, or else for B to C direct and not B
to B to C. We will transfer the VOD rights to the
channel only if they want to promote their station. A television channel that acquires the rights must
show the cartoons on their own web site. For example,
we ceded our rights to TF1 Vision which offers
VOD on its web site without any middleman. If TF1
Vision had wanted to produce a packaging of our
products to sell its brand, we would not have given
them the authorisation.
What is the trend in the VOD market?
The French market is highly representative of what
could happen in other countries in the years to
come. In 2006, the VOD market in France was worth
8 million euros. There were 41,700 Mediatoon programmes
viewed in 2006. In 2007, the market
was worth 29 million euros. 97% of this turnover
was for film rentals and 6.9% was for TV series
(out of which 25% were youth programmes worth
500,000 euros). There were 192,000 programmes of
Mediatoon’s viewed in 2007.
Analysts estimate that
in 2010, the VOD market will be worth between 320
and 600 million euros. 10 to 15% of this market will
be for youth programmes. If the market reaches
500 million euros, then 3.2 million programmes
from the Mediatoon catalogue will have been
viewed. This is the reason why we have started to
work as aggregators and have asked other companies
to join us. We are looking for other catalogues
that
will make us even stronger.
The core business of telecom operators is to sell
IPTV subscriptions. These operators want the least
possible number of middlemen. We want to position
ourselves as a major operator in relation to
these operators. We want to offer large catalogues
and obtain interesting percentages, and possibly
offer lowest guaranteed prices.
Who are the major players in the market?
There are of course the telecom operators, the
television channels, the distributors (such as
Carrefour), the electronic manufacturers, the
Internet portals, etc. The operators can intervene
at different levels when creating the offer. For
example, the television channels can offer B to C
or B to B via a telecom operator when it comes to
presenting their offer on the VOD page of Orange
on IPTV.
Do you work with Youtube or Dailymotion
and do you make a profit?
Yes, the sites that share videos are asking us more
and more to work with them by creating specialised
channels. The channel is set up and formatted
by the aggregator or the producer. We are thinking
about creating a Mediatoon page on Dailymotion. We would be responsible for updating the content. The idea would be to offer a few episodes
in order to promote our series. Dailymotion has
a control room which commercialises advertising
and which would be shared with Mediatoon.
Do you pay the authors?
The authors are paid for all use of their content. Mediatoon has made provisions for the retrocession
of rights; we commercialise the author’s work
and then we transfer the income to the producer
who pays the assignees (authors, musicians, …).
Cartoon Master Murcia, Spain, April 2008
Ti è piaciuto questo articolo? Iscriviti alla nostra newsletter per ricevere altri articoli direttamente nella tua casella di posta.