LAS VEGAS – While there are a lot of new companies with nifty new products and services out there, what will carry the day are two plain old business benchmarks: execution and customer service.
In today’s closing session of the 2007 Cable Show, Cox Communications president Pat Esser said that most of what customers desire now is the same as what they wanted when he began in the cable industry in 1979: “They expect reliability and responsiveness,” he said, along with relevance. The key differentiation nowadays is the level of personalization those customers want.
“That’s the world we’re going to now.”
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Speaking of personalization, part of Disney and Cox’s test of new VOD models will include ad insertion geared specifically toward each user, or each household. The test will see Cox disable the fast-forward functionality (which will surely be, er, a big hit with consumers) and Disney insert new, targeted ads that are more relevant to the viewer. “So the advertising that shows up in front of you is something (more targeted) than a mass market campaign,” said Esser.
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“I don’t believe in the Long Tail when it comes to video,” said Liberty Global president and COO Michael Fries. The long tail is the theory where tons of different kinds of low demand content (or anything else for that matter) can make up market share that matches or beats top-rated content. No matter how many YouTube clips or other sources of on line or mobile video there are in the world, it’s not really affecting Liberty’s core video product, said Fries.
Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s president and COO agreed, calling the content found in the so-called long tail “like the farm team,” where users and other content companies test things and when good stuff comes out of it, “then it becomes a brand,” he said.
While big media companies have to operate in the space, it won’t replace the high end content people want. And when something good does come out of the new platform, it graduates to the big leagues (such as Comedy Central’s upcoming new series Lil’ Bush, which began its life as a bunch of short clips made for mobile.
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“We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of convergence,” said Time Warner Cable’s senior vice-president, wireless Michael Roudi in a wireless session today. The company’s quad play customers are the least likely to leave and want new applications like voice mail on a single platform and caller ID on TV. The large U.S. MSOs have a deal with Sprint where the cable companies offer Sprint wireless as the fourth leg of their quad play while Sprint, in its stores, push the bundle of voice, data and video from the various cable operators.
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Roudi also noted that in a test in Austin, Texas, the number one viewed piece of video on the wireless platform by its quad play customers was a live view of traffic congestion. And on the cable VOD side, the most viewed bit of content was the local broadcaster’s six o’clock news. “Bringing in local, relevant video content is powerful,” he said.
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When Apple’s iPhone comes out this year, it will “fundamentally change the user interface for the entire industry,” said Cox vice-president wireless Stephen Bye, who noted that the basic cell phone UI hasn’t really changed all that much. “We’re looking forward to is as a GSM operator, said Rogers Communications’ vice-president architecture and technology Alexander Brock in the same wireless session.
The Apple iPhone has no buttons, instead opting for a highly interactive touch screen interface.
