A blog devoted to the globalization of content, specifically digital contents, and cross-platform distribution, business models, opportunities and whats next in digital distribution.
This week brought a huge announcement from a group of major TV stations at the annual CES in Las Vegas, commonly known as the Open Mobile Video Coalition. The "Coalition's" goal was to showcase and roll out some of the latest streaming TV options for consumers, and detail a snapshot of things to come. As everything in digital moves at light speed in a down market, the price point and entry into market for consumers to try and sample all of the offerings from the OMVC is hard not to try, because the price is FREE. As a way to entice and lure more people into the mobile TV space the coalition has been active in promoting great new devices from major manufacturers like LG Electronics, Kenwood (only mobile TV units in cars), The Harris Corp., Samsung and Delphi.
One of the major companies, LG, said it will offer up to five new products, all that will be capable of getting the standard Mobile DTV signals.
Currently in Asian countries where mobile TV has been active in consumers lives for awhile, the business model revolves from premium paid services to a'la carte and many offering of advertising sponsored content.
With the announcement yesterday it seems a like a solid way to introduce mobile TV, through advertising and sponsored programming, but then other issues come into play that sometimes people do not spend enough time on. The environment for mobile in U.S. cities. With geo-targeted advertising taking shape all over the country, U.S. consumers still are not as heavy users as there European and Asian counterparts, and this is where the environment issues comes into play. I many Asian and European cities transit is healthy, in the U.S., still many people are tied to their cars, which lowers the amounts of time people will spend watching, and which in-turn provides less revenue form advertising.
All n all, yesterday announcement was extremely positive, now we just need to change more of our habits, have better devices, and get ready to welcome one of the next best revenue generators in digital media, Mobile TV and all of the options of interactivity that comes with it.
As the economy falters many people forget that all around people are trying to cut costs, and now we can include and add to that list the fall TV development schedule. Who knows what the real reason is and will it be the smart one, but as studios are looking to cut money due to a advertising slowdown most development schedules have been scaled by close to 30%. This presents two opportunities, one for original content for on-line, and two, for TV studios to rethink their strategy of the past few decades. The second one could be by revisiting a stripped down development schedule that is focused on and still develops and purchases original scripted & unscripted projects for TV, but rethinks how they promote those series. One way could be to produce short-form cost-effective programming content, embracing the on-line production model, and deliver in shorter pieces like interstitial and through various on-line portals. With this model advertising dollars could be spent on-line increasing revenue for some sites, most likely deals would be put in place with Hulu, YouTube, etc... to make sure that their shows are seen through their portals. If done properly it could save millions of dollars, although the prospect of job losses suck, but it is a model that should be tinkered with to see the merit of it, with themuch thought put into possible job losses.
Experienced digital media executive and entrepreneur passionately involved in the packaging of original and re-purposed digital content. My professional background includes executive experience in brand management and packaging, TV/film production, business development, and strategic business initiatives and planning.
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