Over the past two decades working in the broadcast industry, Bruce Tuchman has been intimately involved with many channels and broadcasters. Having first trained as a lawyer, he helped oversee international expansion for MTV Networks, Nickelodeon and MGM Worldwide Networks, before joining AMC Networks. He currently serves as Head of AMC - Asia Pacific, as well as president of Sundance Channel Global and MGM Channel Global, leading the strategic distribution, programming and marketing of both. An expert on international broadcast and regulation, he is speaking at this year's IBC Leaders' Summit and in the keynote session Assessing the Health of Broadcast on Thursday 11 September.
You have been involved in broadcasting for much of your career. What would you say have been the main changes in, say, the past two decades?
If you look at it on a global basis, we started at a very limited, free broadcast environment. For most markets that represented the advent of pay-TV, that represented the advent of multichannel, and now people are asking what comes next. It's been an unbelievably dramatic twenty years. If you plucked me off the street in 1994 and put me here? It's unrecognisable in a good way and has transformed probably beyond what most people could have imagined back then.
You are currently expanding in Europe. How receptive are you finding the landscape there compared to other territories?
In the past month we've been noticing that we're over the worst of the challenges that came out of the economic crisis in 2008 and we're now starting to see expansion. We're seeing markets bouncing back and even growing in Spain, Greece and other countries. Plus operators are very keen to address the challenges brought about by new distribution technologies.
Are we close to creating homogenous global markets for broadcast programming yet? Indeed, would that be a good thing?
No, and it may always be no, but with qualifications. If something is good it's going to translate. The Hollywood Studios have been doing that for decades; taking something provincially American and marketing it around the world. In 1994 I could not see any channels from India in the US, and now I can see what's going on everywhere. The barriers have come down and exposed people to more things and wider things. But that doesn't mean that people only want to see one type of programme or genre, there will always be a market for martial arts films in the East, quirky independents in France, and baseball in the US.
You trained as a lawyer. How has the legal and regulatory framework of the industry changed in recent years?
There were few requirements when it came to launching a channel in the 1990s, there were few restrictions on advertising, few production quotas. In many markets it was easier to start overseas than it was in the US. Over time that has tightened, for both good reasons on one hand and some uncompetitive ones on the others. The impact of regulation on businesses has become larger and more complex than it was. Where once there was very little regulation it has now become much tighter.
Some attendees at the Leaders' Summit last year argued that regulatory reform was not just necessary but urgent. Would you concur?
That depends on what country and what type of regulation we're talking about. Where there are requirements to air or not air certain content from certain countries, we understand some of the cultural sensitivities behind that and the principles that some governments want to espouse, but there's a general theme of consumers wanting choice and consumers can always find what they want. Reform means everyone joins hands across borders, but many regulations have arisen from very singular and idiosyncratic reasons in most markets and in many places in the world I see that process continuing.
What do you think are the longer term implications of the net neutrality debate in the US?
The internet has become a public good, it's now the property of humanity and has been real way to advance efficiency, productivity and communications for humanity. No one wants to wreck that, and that's what net neutrality is about: it is freedom to access, freedom to publish, freedom to download and understand. But no one ever realised that there was going to be a crunch for bandwidth, and it is getting crowded. My hope is that we can reconcile the two sets of issues and make everyone get access to the web but with nothing getting too distorted that the true value that the web provides society is somehow degraded.
You're speaking at the session Taking the Pulse' at the IBC Leaders' Summit this year. Briefly, what would you say are the main challenges the industry currently faces?
It remains amusing to me that when you're negotiating or strategising in the business day to day so much of the communication is all about, for lack of a better term, new media. But it's the opposite for consumers. If I use the term OT in front of my most media savvy neighbours, they're like Stop, what are you talking about?' It's all about the impact of digital technology, whether that be in a closed or open environment, and though it may not have reverberated with the mass market much so far, it will soon. Years from now, if not sooner, we really will transform the business.
What are the next disruptors and where are they likely to come from?
It's no surprise that all these ways of delivery are here now, the only surprise is that it happened a bit later than thought. We have seen all the models of disruption now, the questions is regarding who will break through. Everyone will have to accommodate and move to these digital modes. Alongside your linear offering you have to have a very cohesive and eco-system friendly on demand offering, PVR offeri
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Over the past two decades working in the broadcast industry, Bruce Tuchman has been intimately involved with many channels and broadcasters. Having first trained as a lawyer, he helped oversee international expansion for MTV Networks, Nickelodeon and MGM Worldwide Networks, before joining AMC Networks. He currently serves as Head of AMC - Asia Pacific, as well as president of Sundance Channel Global and MGM Channel Global, leading the strategic distribution, programming and marketing of both. An expert on international broadcast and regulation, he is speaking at this year's IBC Leaders' Summit and in the keynote session Assessing the Health of Broadcast on Thursday 11 September.
