Healthcare's webcast debut 'is disappointing'

By Francis Till

Friday 22nd February 2002

ON THE WEB

F&P Healthcare
www.fphcare.com
Announce TV
www.announcetv.com
Sharechat
www.sharechat.co.nz

With shareholder bases in the US and Australia as well as here Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is exactly the kind of organisation that stands to benefit most - in theory - from webcasting its financial results.

Webcasts not only sidestep telephone connection charges in most developed countries, they also permit lower per-minute rates for interested parties in countries like Britain where even data telephony is charged by the minute.

They also go a limited way toward reducing the "information advantage" private investors complain that professional investors and analysts enjoy.

With a bill before Parliament proposing changes to the regulations governing what listed companies must disclose, the issue is being followed closely by investor-relations professionals.

Webcasting is employed by many of the larger companies in the UK and the US but FPH's Valentine's day offering was a first for New Zealand.

Audiences in general have been disappointing but are growing slowly. Companies are experimenting with technical and content formats in an attempt to boost participation.

In some cases, the webcast is designed as a streaming media event involving the two-inch equivalent of video-on-demand, a step that enables well-prepared companies to regale broadband- connected participants with charts, graphs and lively images of products and facilities. Often, webcasts permit members of the audience to actively question presenters via email or through various "instant messaging" tools.

FPH's webcast was an audio-only, one-way dissemination of the company's unhappy December third-quarter and nine-month results.

With the minimal bandwidth demands imposed by streaming audio - which is basically nothing more than internet radio made personal - nothing could be simpler, in theory. An FPH source said 75 or so logged in and for most of them it probably worked well.

Sharechat, an online forum and information service for regular investors, asked about 1000 of its users to listen in to the FPH webcast and rate it on technical issues, principally accessibility and information.

The response was disappointing. Only five users returned questionnaires.

Sharechat's Ben Dutton said one problem could have been that many of his users were at work during the webcast.

For non-professional investors that could present problems similar to those the High Court's Justice Robert Fisher has recently encountered.

For what it's worth, the "sharechatters" all logged on successfully and none reported technical difficulties.

They said the webcast had given them useful information quicker than they would have gleaned it from their traditional sources.

All wanted to see more New Zealand-listed companies webcasting results briefings.

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