A few years back I had some dealings with a small company in England that serviced photographic film developing machines. I asked the owner what he was doing about converting his business model to support the digital revolution and the response I got was somewhat condescending. Digital photography would never overtaken film. Today more and more camera manufacturers are dropping film equipment from their line up all together. In Best Buy today I saw a 10 megapixel SLR from Canon that’s actually aimed at amateurs – it’s low end equipment. The digital revolution in film quietly arrived, annihilated anyone that stood in it’s way and is now here to stay. The same thing is taking place with broadcast media.
The introduction of the DMCA was a direct result of media companies pushing for more legislative control in an increasingly digital world. Anyone with a computer can produce an exact replica of any entertainment media out there (music, spoken audio, film, tv) with little to no technical knowledge and just a little time. The tools are freely available, with audio rippers now built into every major operating system. While the media moguls have bemoaned the state of legislation to prevent all this from happening, we have increasingly seen more and more of them reluctantly moving to a digital platform. Much of this has of course been pushed by the popularity of iTunes as platform for paid downloading of both audio and video content.
In America today, analog video signals bouncing through the air and into televisions is something of a quaint anachronism. Many households have cable or satellite feeds. Many of them have digital video recording equipment that lets viewers timeshift broadcast schedules to fit increasingly busy lives. On Demand movies are gaining in popularity to such an extent that many cable providers offer on demand as a free bonus for signing up to their digital programs. We live in a digital broadcast world today, but we’re only at the very tip of an enormous iceberg.
Analysts predict Video to be the next big thing on the Internet. The recent acquisition of YouTube for a reported 1.7 billion dollars lends a great deal of substance to that claim. But when you step back and look at the landscape of the average family lounge here in the US, the future looks obvious. Game’s consoles now provide not only on demand viewing and downloading of content, but can even stream content from nearby computers. Digital media recorders are increasingly gaining the ability to stream content from their hard disks to not only any other device in the house, but also suitably well equipped family computers on the Internet.
I have a digital cable service here. I have a DVR. But, except when friends come round to visit, it’s rarely used. I own subscriptions to my favorite shows in iTunes and iTunes will happily download new content for me as it becomes available. To be frank, except for the social aspects, I don’t need a television today. I watch commercial free programming whenever I feel like it, and of any show of my choosing on schedules that suit me.
The traditional broadcast model is dying. The 50’s stereotype of the family huddled around a glowing box for their favorite prime time television show is rapidly growing adorably twee. Cable companies now, sensing a shift, will happily provide your house with not only television programming but also your phone service and broadband Internet connection. They know what’s coming. It’s about time the big media companies woke up and smelled the bandwidth too. Heavy reliance on overbearing digital media legislation is for consumer happiness what painted flames on the side of a car are for performance. A growing, almost out of control, rise in the distribution of ‘pirated’ content is not a sign of a decline in moral standards that needs to be reigned in. It is a very loud and clear statement that the current broadcast model is not suiting a growing percentage of the population.
In 5 years we’ll have televisions that are computers – digital hubs that get what we want, when we want it, machines that bookmark our viewing positions in shows, that hide unsuitable content from innocent eyes. Broadcast schedules will be a thing of the past and instead we’ll live in an age where, as with software, content is released and made available on demand.
The media giants that jump on this today will be the ones that dominate the next decade. “Publish or die” should be a mantra scrawled in 20 foot high neon paint on every studio’s walls in Hollywood.
Good post. The ability to serve niche broadcast markets via the Internet is truly exciting. I’ve been a hardcore cycling fan for 35 years, but since it’s a largely European sport, video of the races wasn’t available (except on many months after the event DVDs).
Now I can watch the biggest races of the year LIVE – which truly makes my heart soar.
Is there a long tail in video? I believe so.
Comment by Tom Chandler — February 1, 2007 @ 12:24 am |
Pete, I think you’re right, but you’ve missed something with regard to scheduling:
The broadcasters will be able to generate enormous hype by advertising that the next episode of Series X will be available at a certain time on a certain date, FOR A FEE, becoming either free or part of a normal subscription at a later date. So scheduling will remain, albeit in an altered format.
Advertising revenues will therefore be partially protected (ok, that doesn’t take into account “smart” PVR/DVR) enabling more predictable income streams.
And Digital rights management won’t go away, but I don’t think the industry will ever get on top of it. The hackers will always be one step ahead (look at the Blu-ray workaround that was announced recently).
Comment by Russ — February 1, 2007 @ 4:29 am |