Streaming Media - 2008 Industry Sourcebook - (Page 25) big bang media & entertainment year in review 2007 will go down as the year that started with a bang for mobile and social networking digital media and went out with a whimper for traditional broadcasters. by Tim Siglin t he big bang began the day that Macworld San Francisco and the much larger Consumer Electronics Show (held in Las Vegas every January) overlapped. The CES show, at which Apple doesn’t exhibit, was in full swing when Steve Jobs stepped on stage at Macworld San Francisco and held up a small, silver and black device that took the wind out of the sails (and sales?) for many mobile handset manufacturers showing their wares at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Even with a midyear ship date, the iPhone caused a huge stir beginning with its January introduction and continuing through the end of the year. It was released first in the U.S. as an exclusive AT&T offering, to great hype and long lines. It outsold all other smartphones combined in its first 3 months on the market. After a price reduction and introduction of an unlocked version to meet French and German legal requirements, the iPhone continues to push the envelope forward for mobile digital media, in no small part due to its widescreen capability, built-in YouTube support, and a fully functional browser. (Well, almost fully: The lack of Flash video playback is the glaring error that Apple at first excused for its lack of H.264, which Adobe nicely corrected at year end.) Advertising Versus Subscription: Still an Issue So how has the overall media and entertainment space fared this year? One good indicator comes in a report issued by Fitch Ratings, the venerable financial analyst. After noting the deterioration in the broader economic indicators, such as consumer confidence, high gas prices, and sluggish housing sales, and acknowledging that these and other factors could “weigh negatively on discretionary consumer spending and cause some marketers to curtail advertising spending,” Fitch notes that non advertising-driven entertainment models would remain robust. This category, which contains things like movie theaters and music, is maintaining its own, and sales of online music and videos continue to increase significantly, led, as before, by the iTunes Store. The report also notes that advertising-supported media, especially localized media such as newspapers and TV affiliates, are feeling the pressure of web advertising. According to the recent report, which came out before the writer’s strike crippled television’s ability to produce compelling fictional content, even the national television and cable networks would give up ground to online rich media advertising. WWW.STREAMINGMEDIA.COM 25 industry update the http://WWW.STREAMINGMEDIA.COM
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