RTS Announce Full Line-Up for Cambridge Convention

The Royal Television Society (RTS) has unveiled the full line-up for the RTS Cambridge Convention 2013, the UK’s pre-eminent high-level gathering of broadcasting executives. The biennial event, which takes place in Cambridge from 11-13 September, will this year put content creation firmly at the heart of the agenda, asking the question, Whose Side Are You On? Quality Content: Who Pays? Who Decides? Who Profits?
The convention is chaired by Channel 4 Chief Executive, David Abraham. He says, “We have designed the 2013 Cambridge programme to appeal to those working across the industry – producers and content creators as well as industry leaders. This year’s convention opens with a big idea – the value chain – and will explore where the money comes in, how it is spent and where it goes out, both from a UK and a global perspective. Over the two and a half days we will debate the implications of the changes in this chain and how we can protect and grow the quality British content that is at the heart of it.”
In the opening session, Whose Side Are You On?, Jon Snow will chair a scene-setter for the convention with a look at the ever shifting value chain. The session will identify why it’s vital to anticipate the implications of changes across the value chain from programme makers to broadcasters to distribution to audiences; and reveal key findings about what is happening to it.
Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, will offer an international perspective in his International Keynote. Fries presides over a business with 25 million customers and 47 million phone and data subscribers, and with the purchase of Virgin Media has just entered the UK market. Sir Peter Bazalgette asks him: Why now? And is the battleground going to be over telecoms or TV?
Rt Hon Maria Miller MP will set out the government’s view in the Secretary of State Keynote and we will also hear from her opposition Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP later in the week.
Day two will open with a Thought For The Day from Herd Behaviour’s Mark Earls, who will share insights from contemporary behavioural science and what it might presage for TV, specifically with regard to quality content.
With quality content at the heart of the convention, the agenda will then follow the value chain from end-to-end. The subject of Thursday’s first session, Long Live The Creator? will open the day with a look at ideas generation. In recent years demand for quality authored content has skyrocketed and the top-rank IP creators are now more powerful than the broadcasters, or are they? Alan Yentob, Paul Abbott, Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall, Kudos’ Jane Featherstone, WME agent/partner Ari Greenburg, BSkyB’s Stuart Murphy and Channel 4’s Tessa Ross will explore the changing ownership and exploitation of ideas in the market for scripted content.
What can an outsider bring to the table? Having built a media empire that includes Express Newspapers, OK! Magazine and Channel 5, Richard Desmond, in his first major address to the television industry since buying Channel 5 three years ago, will discuss the challenges he faced during his early years in business, his experiences buying Channel 5 and turning it around, and offer some insights into how outsiders can bring new thinking to the broadcasting industry.
How has the balance of power in the value chain shifted? The Communications Act gave independent producers a framework for working with PSBs. But has it worked for everyone? Or is there work still to be done by both sides? Steve Hewlett, Martin Baker, Director of Commercial Affairs at Channel 4, Anne Bulford, MD, Finance & Operations at the BBC, Ben McOwen Wilson, Director of YouTube EMEA, and John McVay, Chief Executive of Pact, will debate this in Terms Of Trade – Time For A Change?
Is Sport, The Game Changer? Sport has become the premium content of choice to drive a pay TV business. Marc Watson, Chief Executive, BT TV, explains the drivers behind his just launched BT Sport and then faces a panel including, Fru Hazlitt, MD of Commercial, Online and Interactive, ITV, Steve Hewlett and Dan Jones, Partner, Sports Business Group, Deloitte, who will explore who’s winning and who’s losing the game.
As President of ABC Entertainment Group, Paul Lee is one of the most powerful Brits in Hollywood. He will talk to Dan Brooke about the global dynamics of content creation and how technology is changing story-telling.
Is British content still a market leader across the world? Or do our funding models and strategies need to adapt to a changing market?  In “TV-conomics” – How British Content Can Conquer The World, Faisal Islam, Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Worldwide and Director, Global, Phil Georgiadis, Chairman, Walker Media, Jane Root, Chief Executive of Nutopia and Andrea Wong, President, International Productions at Sony Pictures Television, explore the state of the market, where the money is and the next territories to sell in to.
What lies ahead? Claire Enders interviews Ofcom CEO, Ed Richards, about the key issues that have faced the broadcasting industry since the establishment of Ofcom ten years ago. After a decade of massive change, she asks what might lie ahead and what we should look out for as the main areas of regulatory intervention.
In the closing sessions of the convention, the agenda will move to technology platforms and new forms of distribution.
Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer, Netflix, seems to break all the rules: he sees a new way to commission, create and deliver content. Jay Hunt asks him: Where Netflix leads will the world follow? Will we have any choice?
Will the traditional value chain of television be zapped not by a platform or a broadcaster but by a plastic console first created for games? Nancy Tellem, Entertainment and Digital Media President at Microsoft, explains why XBox could be the future of TV.
Mike Darcey, CEO of News UK, will talk about transferring strategies which work in pay TV to newspapers, and how he is driving readership to his titles with premium content.
Whose Side Are They On? At the end of three days of debate the convention will introduce four Next Generation Leaders, nominated by their current CEOs as the industry's foremost upcoming stars.  They, alongside the other delegates, will be voicing their opinions and putting tough questions to the current leaders on the stage, including David Abraham, Danny Cohen, Adam Crozier, Dido Harding and Farah Ramzan Golant.
Clare Balding will be Wednesday evening’s after dinner speaker, while Alastair Campbell will speak at Thursday night’s dinner, sponsored by Accenture Digital Services.
For more details of the programme and how to register for the event visit the address below:
RTS
(MH/CD)