filmed entertainment & broadcasting
New technologies, evolving financial structures, and continued globalization are
creating new developments in the filmed entertainment industry. Entertainment
companies are positioning to cash in on new distribution channels such as
high-definition TV (HDTV), interactive TV, Internet appliances (applications,
devices), and video-on-demand to enhance sales and profits. The consolidation
of entertainment and media companies has increased, in order to capitalize on
broader distribution through cross-marketing and cross-promotion of combined
assets. Both the desire to leverage popular content and to compete over
valuable partnerships has led to the establishment of creative revenue-sharing
contracts, which have grown quite complex. Traditionally, royalty and profit
participation partnerships have been tracked and paid through the combination
of legacy systems, spreadsheets, and intensive manual intervention. Companies
can no longer rely on such inefficient and costly processes to manage these
valuable relationships. Investment in a reliable royalty and profit
participation management system can bring the automation, accuracy, and
security necessary to support the demands of regulators and partners, and to
ultimately provide the business with greater flexibility and cost savings.
interactive entertainment
As video game software and hardware sales have reached into the billions of
dollars, other entertainment markets have taken notice. Video game consumers
continue to demand a richer and more sophisticated gaming experience, placing a
greater burden on gaming companies to deliver new top ranking titles. In an
effort to keep gamers satisfied, publishers have turned to licensing highly
valuable intellectual property and franchises, and have gone to great lengths
to keep top-notch development talent. Publishers are also competing to secure valuable licenses from big celebrities and top recording artists, and to secure content from major entertainment companies in order to make their games more appealing.
These developments have led to intricate commercial contracts between video game publishers and their content partners. Back office systems must be in place to support the tracking, payment and analytical complexities of these contracts to help ensure success. For example, a single product can have multiple participants with events, or milestones, based on various pre- and post-production design, development, sales, and shipment events. Each event may trigger a unique receivable or payable to a participant. Given these trends, and others such as franchises, demand has increased for solutions that can manage royalty, rights, and revenue sharing contracts. Hard coded systems and manual interfaces can no longer adequately support regulator and partner demands, leading the largest video game publishers to employ a flexible software product to manage mission critical processes.
online content distribution and interactive tv
With the costs of broadband access on the decline, the consumer adoption rate
for high speed Internet is on the rise. Music and video companies are rapidly
increasing their use of online methods for distribution. Radio, television,
films, animation, online chat, magazine-style content and more will continue to
migrate to the Internet and specialized digital cable programming. Online
service providers continue to compete for compelling content to sell in
cyberspace. In addition, high margin revenue can be made through selling and
collecting advertising and e-commerce revenue as well. Moreover, emerging
technologies that enable faster distribution of content and “on-demand” viewing
are changing the methods by which companies do business. Entertainment and
content publishers along with advertisers of all types are attempting to take
full advantage of the “on-line” world. Technology companies are partnering with
content companies in exclusive revenue sharing contracts hoping to ride the
wave of this growing market. It has become clear that legacy systems and
spreadsheet accounting methods are falling short when tasked with tracking the
high volumes and complexities of these new business models. It has become
imperative for these companies to employ a single system that accurately and
flexibly manages these intricate revenue sharing relationships, as the service
provider business model is growing continually more dependent on their valued
content partners.
music
Digital technology is dramatically changing the way the music industry is doing
business. The adoption of the Internet and the increase in ways to digitally
distribute content is resulting in high volume transactions and complex license
contracts. Many companies are getting new life from old hits through new
distribution channels. This creates a challenge to maintain royalty
distribution capabilities that effectively meet the needs of songwriters,
producers, record companies and publishers. Legacy systems, spreadsheets, and
manual intervention are no longer capable of handling the large volumes
associated with Internet downloads for multiple products and contract
parameters. Music companies need a reliable system in place that is robust and
able to adapt to the rapidly changing business models of the industry.
Many entertainment companies face significant hurdles to efficiently and accurately track, calculate, account for and report on the money received or paid on even a single product. And given the constantly changing complexities of the business, and variables such as territory, rate, distribution channel, and volume, it is not surprising. As a result, entertainment companies have long been clamoring for a flexible solution to meet their challenges. REAL Software Systems has responded with the Alliant product family to meet the critical royalty, rights and revenue sharing requirements of Entertainment companies.
To learn more about how RSS can meet specific needs, please
e-mail or call us.
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