Cablefax The Magazine - March 2015 - 4

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editorial
Multiscreen Mayhem...
It's official: The world of entertainment has gone insane. Countless devices. Confusing
content windows. Endless choice. And all of this mind-blowing chaos has really
happened at lightning speed. These days, we're just as excited about a new show on
Netflix as one on HBO. And we can trace the current state of affairs back to two key
events that happened around the same time. By the mid-2000s, the cable industry had
finally built out broadband to a point in which high-quality video streams for the first
time could fly around unencumbered by bandwidth restraints. Then in May, 2005, came
YouTube, which Google snapped up in October the next year, only two months before
Apple launched the first iPhone, which spurred Google to develop Android, which begot
similar touch-screen smartphones, which led to Apple pivoting to the iPad, which
pressured other CE makers to create their own rival tablets. And during this period,
while we were all donating those Blackberrys to charity, WiFi technology advanced to
the point that broadband become ubiquitous and untethered to Ethernet cables. As the
number of hotspots grew, so did online video usage both in terms of user-generated
and premium content. And so the cable guys built out more bandwidth. And the telcos
upgraded cell networks to LTE. And online video grew even more until we ended up
in the current environment in which we can watch it everywhere and all the time. It's
literally crazy. And wonderful. And overwhelming.
This is where we are. We live in a multiscreen society in which the traditional and new
media businesses are trying to figure out how to survive, thrive and ultimately to give
consumers everything they want. It won't be easy. After all, that tired old ecosystem
has worked pretty darned well over the years. But now we're at a crossroads, and the
content industry must ask some uncomfortable questions: How do we negotiate rights
that are fair to everyone and free up content across devices? How can content windows
work when illegal download sites make piracy so easy? How does the traditional
content bundle survive in a world in which Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, Sling TV and Sony's
Vue all vye for the same eyeballs? These are just a few of the myriad tough questions
that media execs must ask themselves, each other and consumers.
There are no easy answers. No fast fixes. No elegant solutions. In the end, the multiscreen
industry-however we choose to define it-has an arduous slog ahead of it.
The road won't be easy or paved with guaranteed riches. Rather, it will be difficult and
pocked with potholes. But working together, both traditional players and digital newcomers
can indeed find ways to both cooperate and co-exist while giving consumers
what they want-and at a fair price. It will happen. But it will be messy. In the pages
of this issue, we offer our humble take on where this is all headed, what services will
drive revenue and which executives will lead us toward a bold digital
future. Whether it's a kid in his basement creating a virtual reality
killer app or a mad scientist in a corporate research lab cracking the
code on the newest must-have device, we all know one thing: The
world five years from now won't look anything like the
one we're in now. And neither will this business.
associate publisher, cablefax group
Michael Grebb
managing editor
Cathy Applefeld Olson
contributors
Cathy Applefeld Olson, Michael Grebb,
Paula Hendrickson
advertising/business
senior vice president, media communications group
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(212) 621-4964, dschwartz@accessintel.com
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marketing
director of marketing, cablefax
Kate Schaeffer, kschaeffer@accessintel.com
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Diana Rojas, drojas@accessintel.com
director of market development, cablefax
Laurie Hofmann
(301) 354-1796, lhofmann@accessintel.com
design/production
Yelena Shamis, yshamis@accessintel.com
senior production manager
Joann M. Fato
(301) 354-1681, jfato@accessintel.com
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