MediaTel's 'Electronic Trading Debate' held on Thursday 11 October opened by considering what had happened in the last 12 months since MediaTel had held a similar event called 'Why aren't we all trading electronically?'

The opening video Q&A saw Andrew Troullides, chief media officer at IMD, say "that although last year's event came up with a lot of thoughts and some action plans not much had happened since".

The panel agreed that big changes or developments had not materialised but that much had been achieved in broadcast media - to some extent triggered by last year's event.

Liam Plowman, media business director of MediaOcean (the relatively newly named company that combines the products DDS and MediaBank) stated that they had been focussed a lot on product development. Plowman said "MediaOcean have a big presence in the states. In the UK they have worked closely with Clearcast and IMD to make product improvements for CARIA and DDS".

Plowman added, "things that used to take a day now only take an hour. However, there are still a lot of issues around legacy technology. Our clear aim is to get products out the door much more quickly".

Derek Jones, managing director at MediaTel and the event chair interjected - "Havas have left the DDS fold to develop their own applications". Plowman responded, "the key thing is that MediaOcean provides a common platform and now agencies can plug their applications into this".

Jeff Eales, director of systems and development at BSkyB is a convert to MediaOcean. Eales admitted "there have been a lot of heated debates but that during the last 12 months things had been achieved with CARIA and the MediaOcean feed".

Eales continued, "last year this whole issue seemed a real burden for agencies but this year things have moved on. There is a realisation from all parties that we have to have standardised data between buyer and seller, it's not that difficult".

"Then why does all this take so long?" asked the chair.

Eales responded, "it's important that the commercial and business managers are on board and stay close to the overall strategy and objectives. If you let the techies take over they may not be aware of strategy and what's important, especially as time moves on".

Delegates were asked if senior people were engaged with the issues?

Lorna Prentice, business systems director at Group M said, "Group M are making extremely good progress and delivering efficiencies. We have too many manual practices and there was full support from all senior managers in the business to make processes better".

Eales added, "over the last 12 months we have also busted some myths, on both sides - media owners and media agencies. You have to start the process and engagement without talking about media prices or trading".

Gary Goodman, CEO of MediaEquals, who penned an eve of event article on this subject, said "MediaEquals have worked progressively with the regional press. Last year seemed like spinning plates but we have made some in-roads into creating a single workflow for the regional press".

MediaEquals now work with Johnston Press as well as having Northcliffe, having initially approached the regional newspaper industry as a whole.

It seems that developments continue with the broadcast media but the print medium - apart from these regional press publishers - have yet to engage and move forward with any conviction.