UNDER THE RADAR: Stephen McCormack, WildwaveWILDWAVE IS a media and entertainment company for the digitally connected, born out of a dotcom boom-and-bust story, explains self-starter Stephen McCormack.
"It began as facilitator, resolving technology and rights issues, and from there we began creating our own content for the web. We make programmes as well as the technology to enable their broadcast."
Wildwave runs web television channels and has offices in Dublin, Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles.
McCormack first came across the internet in 1993 at his first job with UK company International Computers.A year later he left to join Exselan, where he created software for the internet and built websites using html and Java.
An approach in 1997 made him think about going it alone and he took his team with him. "The four of us each took out a car loan for €10,000 - there was no way the banks would have given us a business loan - and became partners."
In the lift on his way to what would become their first contract, he came up with the name Nebula for the firm and told the meeting they were already established.
"We got the contract, which was with a very large telco," says McCormack. The fledgling company went from a staff of four to 100 in three years.
"Nebula rode the dotcom boom and we became paper millionaires before we were 30." They got a buyout offer for about €12 million about six months before the crash, but declined. "By the end of 2000 the company had imploded and we were bust."
McCormack co-founded Bitbuzz in 2004, a wi-fi company of which he remains a director. At the time, he realised the internet was the future of entertainment, but saw that there were issues surrounding technology and rights.
"It provided us with the perfect opportunity to become the problem-solver. I set up Wildwave in 2004 with my one-time partner from Nebula Daragh Ward."
They then started generating their own content. McCormack had been working on film projects with Nicky Gogan of the Darklight Film Festival since 1999.
"We at Wildwave wanted to set up a mobile film channel and teamed up with the Darklight Film Festival to stream short films for broadcast on the internet in 2003. We called the collaboration Wild Light and sold it to Vodafone and others." Wild Light's content was sold to Astro in Malaysia, which opened the eastern door to them. The company last summer set up Wildwave Asia to broadcast Indie Asian Music Television.
"As we expanded we needed a lot of content which we couldn't buy or acquire, so we set up a production company to make TV for convergence, making it as interactive as the audience wants."
The programmes include a festival show, Ballistic; a dance music show called ID, which has four shows in production; and Sweded TV, the company's first commission for RTÉ, which is being produced with Still Films.
The company has three more shows in development with a number of broadcasters. These include a fashion programme.Wildwave also has a large-scale international programme in development.
The big money is still in traditional broadcasting, admits McCormack, but it's four times cheaper to make for web TV. But times are changing.
"There's already loads of choice on mainstream television channels, but the content we create talks directly to the audience . . . It allows you to target specific groups in a casual fashion that isn't linked to mainstream media."
Wildwave expects to have a turnover of €1.5 million at year end and employs 20 people plus contractors.
