Think "new media" and you might think geek, anorak, tecchie. But not so Gary Carter, whose colourful appearance and distinctive eyewear reflect his broad and equally colourful interests. Once he starts to speak he reveals himself as a thinker and a visionary, unafraid to acknowledge the uncertainties surrounding the future of his business and dismissive of the inadequate language that exists to describe the changes going on so quickly within it. Well-read, prone to quote philosophers and draw parallels with flower arranging (a hobby of his), Gary has been called both guru and pretentious. Perfect attributies, you might say, for his role as head of FMX, where he combines crystal ball gazing with brave efforts to describe how the television of the future might look, and to guide content development for it.

Reassuringly, for the TV industry, he doesn't predict the death of television. Less reassuringly, for the licensing industry, his conclusions about how future television will be delivered, consumed and personalised have far-reaching implications for our traditional business model. We talked to him about why licensing in partnership with television will have to change or die.

Describe the work of your department, FMX

Television Time Line

The term 'digital' future has different implications for different divisions of the company. The word digital itself is tricky - TV is already digital - but since the mid-90s people have been saying content is king and I think it is; you create new plumbing and then have to devise what goes down it.

What does the X stand for?

FMX develops forms of entertainment that have nothing to do with any existing TV or brands that Fremantle owns or controls.

At the moment, FMX defines itself in the absence of a technology. The technology is changing so fast so we threw out the notion of technology and looked at audience experience. Now we describe our mission as "developing and producing personalised and participatory media experiences."

We lean towards content, which means that from a business point of view we will always have to partner with other companies for delivery. Although we might develop a few applications in house, we can't work in isolation.

But we do make one assumption about technology. We assume that the default delivery mechanism for entertainment in the future will be broadband internet, probably wireless.

What is the 'futuristic' content you are developing?

By content I absolutely don't mean necessarily audio visual material.

What do you mean?

I mean personalised and participatory media experiences. Not necessarily moving pictures with sound per se, although they might be.

What might else they be?

Well, they might be little applications that allow you to fiddle with content; games structures overlaid on other content; certain types of interactive broadband internet websites, or game structures played over a whole set of media, for example. The killer application for the entertainment industry is to understand what new forms of entertainment can be enabled on new networks. That's what we're about: new forms on new networks.