![]() ![]() They aggregate audiences for the advertisers. Distributors deliver the product (content) to the target market in volume, ensure cash collection and remunerate the suppliers (licensing fees). Let’s switch to Business 101: Distribution plays a crucial role in any supply chain and the content industry is no different. Alas, it was the distributors, the middlemen, who were latest to react. If a vacuum is left, it quickly gets filled by other components until a new equilibrium is found. In such an emergency, every component needs to stick to its core, derive strength from its expertise and evolve. Until one day, the combined meteorite of the iPads, compression technology and Netflix slammed to earth, disrupting the existence of the delicate eco-system. It thrived because every piece understood the value it was bringing to the table and all the other pieces accepted this value. Carriage fees, franchises, right of way, upfronts, Nielsen sampling all phenomena that defy rational explanation. ![]() The US content industry is a marvel of complexity and complication, as any industry insider can tell you. No, not the evolutionary law of survival of the fittest, but nevertheless a core principle of every complex eco-system: That every organism must fulfill its role with efficiency or risk being devoured by more evolved beings. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is a reassertion of a basic law of nature. Should we blame CBS, who laid siege to mighty TWC, eventually starving them into submission, costing them 300,000 subs before extracting a pound of flesh and exposing the middlemen in all their weakness? #2015 TOMIGHTY SAFE TV#Should we blame HBO, the darling of the Pay TV industry, the premium channel that has defected to the dark side and gone rogue, turning its back on the vaunted bundle and the wonders of authentication? Where has this plague come from that threatens an industry with extinction? Why wasn’t a vaccine prepared in time? What other apocalyptic developments should we expect? And hardly a day goes by without an analyst reporting from the hospice to where the terminally ill Pay TV operators are taken, bidding them farewell on their last journey with a pitying smile and fond recollections of glory days that will no longer return. Hardly a day goes by without some announcement from a content provider or network hinting that they have cleared out the garage from all the Jags and Beamers, in favor of ramen-eating geeks who are busy coding away a super-sleek OTT TV service that will go direct-to-consumer and cut out the annoying Pay TV middlemen- the multichannel video programming distributors ( MVPDs). ![]()
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