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TV giants `stifle creativity but Internet will free it'

Dan Milmo

"There is going to be potential for new programming, and new creative ideas."

THE FORMER top British TV executive, Michael Jackson, now in the United States and president of programming at Barry Diller's $9 billion web empire, InterActiveCorp (IAC), has predicted a leading role for the Internet in plugging a "creative deficit" in American broadcasting.

In his new role, Mr. Jackson is charged with finding text and video content to sit alongside IAC websites, which include the Ask.com search service, dating portal match.com and Ticketmaster.

Mr. Jackson said the American TV industry had suffered from the dominance of media conglomerates such as Disney and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, but the sector was entering a new era as the web undermined the advertising-based business model.

A new generation of content makers is emerging, he said, able to screen shows on the web, bypassing Comcast's cable system or DirecTV's satellites. "Broadband will enable content to get around the old aggregators. That to me is the most exciting thing. In the US you cannot launch a TV show without Brian Roberts [chairman of Comcast] or Rupert Murdoch [owner of DirecTV] on your side."

In an interview with The Guardian at the MipTV programme market in Cannes, France this week, the former chief executive of the U.K. Channel 4 said creativity had been stifled by media conglomerates that own broadcast networks as well as producing films and programmes, such as Disney, which owns ABC, or News Corp, owner of Fox. This was why independent production was not thriving. "In the U.S. TV market there are no American independent producers, so we have ended up with a few vertically integrated players. That has been the single greatest reason behind the success of independent production from outside the US. Vertical integration has led to a creative deficit."

Mr. Jackson said growth in broadband, which is now in two-thirds of web-enabled American homes, had the potential to do for content makers what Channel 4 did for independent producers in Britain: create a new market and bypass monopolies. "If you create the conditions, people will invent new ways of working. This moment reminds me very much of the Channel 4 launch."

Although IAC's new programming venture has yet to make a statement of intent with a site launch or acquisition, its benchmarks are the Huffington blog — Huffingtonpost.com, which has become a lightning rod for liberal debate in the U.S. within a year of its launch as a collection of contributions from people such as Warren Beatty and Tina Brown — and the blog empire Gawker Media, created by former journalist Nick Denton and described by Mr. Jackson as a "Web2.0 version" of the Conde Nast magazine group.

"There is going to be potential for new channels, new programming and new creative ideas," Mr. Jackson said.

Having made his name as a TV executive, Mr. Jackson said IAC's programme content would not be radically different from what TV viewers were used to, and would concentrate on genres such as news, comedy and fashion.

It would be content that "gets shared and talked about" but without the conventional network marketing budget.

"The fundamental needs of what people are looking for are the same. American Idol is a 1930s radio talent show with some new features, like the meanness of the judges and the audience voting,'' he said. ``That's what I am doing now. It's about doing the things I already know about, such as narrative and storytelling, and adding to it those functionalities and tools that enable users to get to what they want with remarkable speed and precision."

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

(Dan Milmo is media business editor of the Guardian newspaper.)

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