Cable Is Dead-Long Live Broadband!
By RICH HARDESTY and DAVE SICKERT -- Multichannel News, 4/2/2000 8:00:00 PM
The Iowa Cable Association' s recent announcement that its annual convention and trade show would cease to exist is but the first of what will be a rapid succession of cable-focused trade and professional associations that will make similar declarations.
In fact, Eastern Cable Show organizers noted that this years' event would reflect a 30 percent decrease in attendance by exhibitors-a key indicator of the viability of conferences of this kind. And an industry veteran who scanned the exhibit floor at the Western Show in 1999 calmly observed, "the cable industry is dead-it' s a whole new game out there, and so many of these people don' t even know it yet."
The "cable industry" as we have known it for the past several decades ceased to exist at some point in the past two years. It' s almost as though the industry has been caught off guard by the rapid consolidation of its membership. Bottom-line, fewer independent companies translate into fewer decision-makers in the programming, equipment, and services marketplace for cable. This trend is permanent and irreversible.
There is, however, another powerful force at work that is not as obvious as ownership consolidation. This force holds the key for the industry' s transformation and an opportunity for cable trade and professional associations to be reborn into a growing, synergistic, and thriving arena filled with a multitude of companies, prospective members and plenty of new products and services to buy.
This force-convergence-is the evolutionary catalyst transforming cable into the broadband industry. To capitalize on this opportunity, the first thing cable-industry associations need to do, lest they be rendered obsolete, is remove the word cable from their names. Actually, it' s a little more complicated than that, so let us back track a bit.
In this fast-paced, Internet-focused' environment, broadband has expanded beyond cable-signal delivery to an industry that includes other technologies as well as "other" digital content. And just as importantly, the industry now includes "other players." Digitally delivered content is converging into the same market space as Web pages, streaming video, live audio/Web radio, electronic commerce and telephony to homes and businesses.
In addition to cable-TV infrastructure, the world of broadband now encompasses digital-subscriber-line technology and interactive TV in multiple forms, as well as satellite and wireless technologies.
The roster of companies in this space has grown beyond the ranks of old stalwarts like Comcast Corp., Time Warner Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Cox Communications Inc., Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta Inc., to name but a few. It now includes America Online Inc., Microsoft Corp., Oracle, Real Networks, Amazon, Sony, Cisco and others.
In short, a multitude of companies and technologies are all vying for a piece of the new digital-broadband market space. In fact, in this newly defined broadband industry, the field of competition has quickly become crowded with new companies, who five years ago barely knew of each other' s existence-or even existed at all. The upshot is that the cable industry-Oops! That' s broadband industry-is in the process of being "morphed" into something much greater than it ever was.
What has kept the communications and media industries separated into different camps until recently? Clearly, it has been technology. While technology may have been the historical basis for segmentation in content delivery and in the marketplace, technology is now erasing those distinctions for the people that matter: consumers.
As voice and digital data merge into a single broadband stream and as print and broadcast evolve online, consumers will focus on access to content or digital data that is backed by companies providing reliable service at reasonable prices. The consumer will care less if the access is provided by a landline buried in their yard, a satellite signal or mysterious waveforms coming out of the ether.
In fact, it is the coalescing of communications technologies and the rapid embrace of digital-delivery standards that have done more to break down the barriers separating the content-pdelivery players. This dramatic change in the past 10 years simply means that we' re all in this "convergence space" together. This includes those who own and operate the delivery infrastructure, the technology providers, the content creators, the e-commerce entities and interactive agencies like eDM, which tries to curry favor with all of them. It is in this thread of logic that the cable associations of old and the broadband industry can find the inspiration of a new beginning.
Here's a roadmap that the cable industry-now broadband industry-trade and professional associations need to follow in creating a strategy and action plan for the present and future:
The technologies that serve the cable, telephone, satellite and wireless industries are going to become even more common and standardized. To be a successful broadband-industry association, be prepared to embrace them all as one and articulate an agenda that represents common interests. You should start by reaching out to non-cable industry events and seminars that focus on today' s Internet marketspace.
The broadband industry is now comprised of people who are well versed in a number of skill sets such as: general managers, financial experts, marketing professionals, hardware and software engineers, customer service specialists, Internet developers, advertisers, and interactive programmers to name but a few. Going forward, the skill sets will not be provided by people primarily with cable system or cable programming background or experience. This suggest you will need to design industry seminars and training and development programs that address the needs of members based on cross-industry disciplines and skills in areas such as marketing, sales, management, program development and open-standards based (Internet) technologies, etc.
In the short term, look for pathways to encourage participation from those industry sectors that have a vested interest in the narrowband market of today and a profound interest in the broadband market of tomorrow. This suggests you must start thinking about forums that include companies often regarded as "Internet-only." Content, technology, and e-commerce companies all have a stake in the future and fortunes of the broadband industry along with the "cable companies". Case-in-point, QVC and HSN are long-established "cable programming" entities that one assumes will follow the migration to broadband delivery in its various forms. You can bet that eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon want to be there as well. As a "broadband member", you should find ways of bringing all of them into your tent.
And finally, if you talk to someone from the Internet sector, broadband is defined in terms of kilo or megabytes of throughput. In the cable sector, it' s expressed in megahertz.
In the marketing sector its "eyeballs" and market share.
Ultimately, it' s one really big business. So break with the past and sooner rather than later, identify a way to replace the word cable with broadband in your association' s branding. The industry and ultimately the consumer will thank you for it.
P.S.: All due credit to U S West (aka MediaOne), who started the re-naming trend years ago.
Rich Hardesty and Dave Sickert are the founders of The Electronic Direct Marketing Group (theeDMgroup.com). Their Web site is located at www .theedmgroup.com.
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