Traditional TV is in for a heck of a ride http://t.co/AHXR0djD Meta trends in media.
This is a long article but well worth the read as Habib Kairouz runs through a comparison between the ills that afflict the print industry with those that are affecting television as we’ve known it.
It is now widely accepted by the major industry stakeholders, content owners, MSOs, CE manufacturers and new startups that the following trends are unavoidable:
- Consumers will demand linear and on demand, short-form and user generated videos, to be viewed anytime, anywhere and on multiple devices. I believe that companies that build models to meet that demand will win. Those that deny it will go on life support.
- TV rooms in homes will have multiple screens running simultaneously, presenting a much better form factor to interface with the TV set than the traditional remote control. Most new TV-viewing devices will be Internet connected in 10 years.
- A substantial percentage of programming will have on demand, time shifted and interactive capabilities. New formats of programming with embedded interactive applications will emerge, and social TV will take off.
- Advertising will be targeted and personalized, at the individual and household levels, using legacy data from the settop box as well as ongoing rich data being generated every day, unless regulators step in to over restrict that. Smart marketers are already challenging the convention of TV time buying by demanding the same accountability that they are getting in their online buys.
He then goes into why fighting this round of disruption will be even harder than the previous rounds and concludes with:
The question is not if a market disruption is looming. It is. The question is who will lead the charge and end up on top? Will the MSOs be able to innovate and keep consumers tuning in on their terms? Will the digital media houses continue successfully on their transition into the market? Or will smaller players find a way to fill the gap and create the next generation dynasty?
My bet is on companies that will embrace rather than fight the trends, control at least one end of the value chain (content or consumer interface) and build sticky or proprietary assets such as viewing data and recommendation engines, billing or storage of personal content. Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure, we’ll all be tuning in (on multiple devices) to find out.
The entire article is a through provoking read and great background as we try and divine how and where we’ll make money in production in the future.