JUST WHEN I WAS GETTING used to my phone being a TV and my TV being a phone, life got more complicated. Now we're doing business in an era of commonplace digital mashing of both content creation and distribution.
Multi-channel networks like Base79 in the U.K., MakerStudios in the U.S., and Blue Ant here at home, are popping up everywhere – and primarily (but not exclusively) via YouTube. Comcast, according to its VP new services Himesh Bhise, who spoke at the Banff World Media Fest, is all-over this phenomenon with their X1 Platform entertainment system.
Indeed, Xbox and Playstation are also in the forefront of these developments; with consumers' viewing and time-shifting now happening on multiple devices in real-time. Those constantly in-hand game controllers can do far more than make Master Chief dance. Even Vimeo is investing in its own new, original content today. As well, HBO, which only 20 years ago was a single feed, is now hugely multiplexed.
Mary Ann Halford, managing director of FTI Consulting, believes content diversity is seeing a heyday – ranging from anthology series making a comeback through binge viewing and semi-professional content impressing on the web, she said at Banff.
The web is in many ways more fertile, added Group M Entertainment VP Adam Pincus, when it comes to less rigid story-telling and experimentation – meshing itself with multiple business models such as subscription, library SVOD, games, ad supported fare, and rental models (especially for new release movies) – and thereby reaching larger critical mass targets.
While TV remains the only platform with five hours per day of our (distracted) attention along with an 88% reach, web and mobile screen devices are nudging close to three hours/day themselves. Moreover, these new screen alternatives to the living-room TV (iPad, mobile, etc.) skew much younger.
For example, 50% of the 18-34 crowd in the U.S. self-identifies as a Netflix subscriber, plus most of those built-in consumers on 30 million sold X-Boxes, in my humble view, are probably not reading flyers for Retirement Living TV.
While the Banff rumour "de jour" was that Time-Warner will spend $2.2 billion on acquiring multimedia brand Vice, the majority of traditional TV doesn't appear as committed to this trend as their millennial offspring. Yet if Rob Sussman, EVP & GM at EPIX is accurate, TV ten years from now will be a complete on-demand, interactive interface.
While I'm not certain it will take a full decade, it's clear that a trend is emerging for 22-42 minute formats that are highly immersive story-telling, with channels behaving more like aps and simple brands. Yes, longer-form video will still have a place and the big screen will remain favoured – and so too will be our penchant for relying on 11 or so channels (er, apps) for 90% of our viewing. However, they will be finely tuned, custom-designed & personalized, and possibly entail less actual discovery beyond their gated screen world.
"This OTT matter is not a Tesla trend, it's a right now, right here, honking Mack truck."
In that context, traditional theatrical release success will get tougher, but great indie fare might become prevalent. For example, at Sundance nowadays independents are reaping ten times the money of ten years ago thanks to Netflix and similar OTTs, such as Sony's Crackle competing for their content.
And, importantly, while Canadian regulators and conventional stakeholders (see the CRTC’s Let's Talk TV) might be cautiously proposing "more choices and flexibility in the way you subscribe to television services", this OTT matter is not a Tesla trend, it's a right now, right here, honking Mack truck.
In just two years, Netflix is forecasting 100 million subscribers, and was already bigger in 2013 than the vanguard HBO launched in 1972 – some 42 years ago.
So let's go back to this cloud-based Comcast X1 platform. By the end of this year it will be available to 100% of Comcast's footprint. Indeed, they are shipping 20,000 advanced DVR boxes a day and rising. Cox and other old-school U.S. BDUs are signing up with partnerships.
What it offers is a fast, all-platform, digital, integrated system, simple and complete, that syncs up your TV, PVR, other assorted devices, personal calendar along with any other accounts such as Twitter or Facebook.
Hell, it may even walk the dog.
So as we approach the CRTC's extended deadline of June 27th for filing on Phase 3 of their "conversation with Canadians", let's hope that our stakeholders are converging on a road map that works for you, me and for our cord-shaving and cutting millennials.
Otherwise… did someone say roadkill… again?
