Fire Alarms Systems

Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, is expected to television executives to offer an olive branch - and perhaps even some funding
. An open letter from Tess Alps of Thinkbox

If Google 's Chairman Eric Schmidt, the MacTaggart lecture is an audience of TV executives in Edinburgh on Friday, do the first people from outside of broadcasting, he is a positive message to deliver: "Google needs you".

Schmidt is expected to tell delegates that Google wants to help the industry realise a bright future. That is a striking change from the company's uncompromising stance in the past, when it was fighting legal actions from broadcasters and film studios over alleged copyright infringement.

It would be surprising if Schmidt didn \ s most prestigious meeting with a few conciliatory words armed 'arrive t in the industry ", but his message is warmly, made from the environment of the company. Chatters on Google' s most controversial projects, including the mapping of the world 's streets and digitizing every book can disguise the fact they are driven by commercial necessity rather than corporate altruism. Despite his status as an Internet giant with annual sales of nearly $ 30 billion (? 18 billion) and a 85% share of the search market, Google is content creators to thrive, order.

Good content drives to be searched, and search drives advertising. The more compelling content there is online, the more money Google makes. In Schmidt 's seen, makes that Google and the TV industry and potential partners in the right circumstances, natural collaborators.

Relationship Check

The contents of Smith 's speech is a closely guarded secret. But a headline-grabbing initiative - perhaps a Google programming fund, the production companies could for money? - Can help you calibrate the relationship between the IT nerds from Mountain View, California, and the creators of Soho and Salford.

A few years ago would this prospect seemed remote. Broadcasters watched with frustration, such as Google-owned YouTube-generated traffic by allowing users to post clips of hit shows, while Google allows others to find pirated material available elsewhere on the Internet. Google 's retort to content providers who complained - they should be thankful that some of the traffic was diverted its own website - began to wear itself thin.

But since then the company has smoothed out an accommodation with some of them, striking revenue-sharing deals, which ruffled feathers have been reached. Google has so through the creation of a program content ID that scans the Internet for illegal material. Content producers can then decide whether to remove those pages or leave them untouched and are campaigning against them if they choose this option, they pocket all the associated revenue.

It is an olive branch, that many groups were confiscated. In 2009, Channel 4, BBC Worldwide and ITN among broadcasters agree on a deal with YouTube allows ads around their content. Today, only one big complaint is excellent, although there is a large - MTV owner Viacom and Paramount 's $ 1 billion for alleged "massive intentional copyright infringement".

The subtle shift in the balance of power between Google and the TV industry is a phenomenon Schmidt is expected to confirm on Friday evening. The focus is on working with content companies and major domestic players, including the BBC and C4 are. He is probably a compliment to the creativity, the British Broadcasting is enabled to assert, is the most successful in the world. The UK exports more formats than any other nation, according to Pact, the trade association for independent producers, it will show later this week that the total international sales by India alone produces a 34% growth last year to £ 590m. Selling British overseas formats now for a quarter of the sector 's total sales.

In the meantime, Google 's long-awaited assault on television has stalled. Google TV, which set a TV in a Web browser, is launched in the U.S. in the spring, but it has flopped. This is partly because, Logitech, the set-top box manufactures required, priced at $ 249 (it is preparing $ 99 slash). Worse still, to use Google TV clunky and heavy.

The teething problems have been solved (the $ 12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility last week can help, because the group is a big player in set-top boxes), but as Google marches to the radio area, it proves to be less sure-footed than many feared.

One of Google 's mantra is that there is a technology company, is not a content company, and how it focuses on the major mobile market, it becomes less and less interest in the material and more users are looking at the platforms they use to do focused Sun It announced in April it would spend $ 100 million original content for YouTube, but that's less than half of Channel 5 's annual budget for the program design.

Audience-Booster

Schmidt 's message is designed to TV executives worry that Google would in the same way it has other companies that struggled to calm influence in order to replace lost revenue on the Internet. However, unlike movie studios and music publishers, newspapers, commercial TV always gives away his product. Technological advances and new platforms, including the BBC 's iPlayer have led more general audience - live or on the ability to watch TV catchup services online, the market has expanded. The average British viewers watched 18 hours and 9 minutes away from linear TV commercial during the week (2 hours, 35 minutes per day) during the first six months of 2011, according to Barb figures published last week. This is an increase of 48 minutes per week (seven minutes per day) over the same period in 2010. As many as one in five people now click on BBC shows such as EastEnders, after it emitted 've. For example, last month won an EastEnders episode a Monday night audience of 8.8 million, to observe a further 1.8 million later. One Sunday night edition of Top Gear was watched by just over 8 million on BBC2, and a further 2.8 million downloaded it on iPlayer.

Television is also defies the adage that media companies must be prepared to have much less charge for digital displays, which cost hundreds of pounds in the old analog world would. The implications for cost per 1,000 online TV advertising is often higher than for linear TV for commercial TV marketing body Thinkbox. This is partly because the online audience tends to be generally between 16 and 34, a demographic advertisers covet. A 30-second commercial that audience reach on linear television advertisers will cost £ 19 per 1,000 views to show sources from the industry, but the same ad will cost between £ 25 - £ 27 per 1,000 for an on-demand show.

The convergence of TV and Internet can not be the end of the business model that traditional commercial television has served us well for more than 50 years. The viewers seem willing to accept TV ads online, even though they do not tolerate pop-up and banner ads. The online version of The X Factor catchup runs almost eight minutes of advertising per hour, almost the same as the live show.

So it may be reason for optimism, but not everyone swayed by Schmidt 's charm offensive. "[Google 's] search business is primarily driven by quality content they pay for nothing," says a senior source from the industry. "But content owners have realized they have more power than they thought. [Smith] will say nice things and expect we 're all going to bow, but it' s not enough. [We 're too tell him] 'You' ve got to put your hand into the pocket '\. "

Cry

Radical proposals include a one-off monopoly tax, which TV executives argue could be justified by pointing to Google's 85% UK search share, with the proceeds used to fund programming. Given Google's Downing Street connections - David Cameron's director of strategy, Steve Hilton, is married to Google's global head of public affairs, Rachel Whetstone - that idea is unlikely ever to get off the ground.

There was a time when Schmidt might be a set-piece speech are used to fire a warning shot. The fact that he is likely to provide a battle cry, instead of TV executives are proposing more than they lose by accepting that they need Google as much as Google they need reinforcement.