Content companies are about to see a rise in the value of content because Internet companies need what they sell, Terry Semel said at the opening of TheGrill conference on Monday.
Semel, the former chairman of Warner Brothers and CEO of Yahoo, said that companies like Google, Apple, Netflix and others are realizing that they need what Hollywood creates to drive advertising revenue.
(Semel, at left, and Sloan; photographs by Jonathan Alcorn)
“Silly little Internet things are cute for a minute, but it’s not what big advertisers were looking for,” Semel said, at the kick-off panel discussion, "Hollywood's Future: Between Wall Street and Silicon Valley."
“They’re looking for more stable content that could be on television, could be on cable.”
Also read: Harry Sloan to Obama: Tax Me
Semel said that Hollywood will soon have four or five more "HBOs" as customers for their content, pointing to the new media companies that need quality content.
Watch Terry Semel and Harry Sloane's Full Session at TheGrill here.
"They’re now looking for how do we get our arms around content," Semel said, predicting a coming "groundswell."
Watch: Semel discusses Hulu's true value at TheGrill
"Their advertising business was missing one huge factor and that was first class important vehicles," he added.
One thing he doesn't anticipate happening in the near future is that tech companies such as Apple or Amazon will actually buy a media company, as AOL did with Time Warner at the dawn of the aughts.
But that could change. "I would predict that ultimately we will see that again," Semel said.
Harry Sloan, co-founder of the film fund Global Eagle, argued that media companies are challenged.
“We have to figure out where this assault on traditional media by digital media is going,” Sloan said. He said he would not be investing in newspapers, but was worried about the future of "serious journalism" in a world of destabilized business models.
Also read: Harry Sloan & Jeff Sagansky: The Future Is Content -- and It's Outside the U.S.
Sloan, the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer head, whose Global Eagle recently rounded up $190 million to invest in media companies, said that advertisers have been slow to capitalize on the viewers movement from their living room television sets to their laptops and iPads. He noted that 18 percent of viewers watch television programming digitally, but only 5 percent of the advertising has transitioned with them.
Also read: Steve Levitan at TheGrill: We Need a Better Way of Counting Viewers on Emerging Platforms
The duo kicked off the TheGrill, which runs all day Tuesday, as keynote speakers. A broad array of industry figures, including Arianna Huffington of AOL Huffington Post Media Group, “Modern Family” co-creator Steve Levitan, and the Black Eyed Peas founder will.i.am,
