Global television broadcasters, seeing their networks potentially bypassing them in the rush to offer shows and other content online, will meet this week to figure out how to hang on to viewers and dollars, an Associated Press report said.
The report said TV stations were already moving to provide their own video clips to Web sites hungry for content, insisting that they could use their strong relationships with local audiences to market network shows on their own sites in exchange for a share in the profits.
The report said it was not entirely clear yet if they could cash in on the growing shift of advertising dollars and eyeballs to the Internet, but local broadcasters had no choice but to try.
"The question is, do they partner with those new forms of content or those new providers‾ Or do they sit on their hands and become less and less relevant," Jimmy Schaeffler, an analyst with market research firm Carmel Group, was quoted as saying.
Those challenges will be discussed at the annual gathering of the National Association of Broadcasters to be held in Las Vegas.
The show draws more than 100,000 TV and radio broadcasters from 130 countries as well as TV networks and technology companies that provide everything from cameras to traffic helicopters, the report said.