As I Was Saying
Technology, content and policy in the evolving multi-platform ecosystem. Veteran media/telecom analyst Gary Arlen delivers competitive outlooks and insights.
How Do You Say Competition?
When Cox Communications president Pat Esser referred to the “Regional Bell Operating Companies” during Cable Show 2012’s final general cession, several of us winced and wondered about his use of the hoary term. The RBOCs or Baby Bells, created three decades ago during the old AT&T divestiture, are long gone; some were reconstituted during the revistiture of the legacy te ...... Read More
Comments (2)You Had to Be There: Memorable Moments from 40 Years at the Cable Show
It could have been the technology promises that “seemed like a good idea at the time.” It might have mentioned National Cable Television Association president Tom Wheeler and general counsel Brenda Fox doing “porn patrol” in the early 1980s, shutting down video displays that were too explicit for the exhibit hall. Or this list could have included myriad tales of Ted T ...... Read More
Comments (1)Different Ways to Watch
Suddenly, everyone wants to be in some part of the TV business. While we await whatever Apple TV becomes, we can look forward to the Ikea “”Uppleva” TV set, already on sale in Europe. Just as the buzz about an Intel-branded set-top box and accompanying online video service calms down, Samsung pops up with a plan to insert advertisements on its mobile devices - a probable prel ...... Read More
Comments (1)NewFronts: Familiar, Different Show + New Economics
The Digital Content NewFronts (DCNF), which wrap up this week [May 1 and 2] with an NBC Universal spotlight on the Comcast subsidiary’s digital lineup and a Google/YouTube “brandcast,” have been even more exhilarating than I expected. They’re also reminiscent of cable networks’ younger days, when program announcements and celebrity appearances triggered gushing v ...... Read More
Comments (0)What's Rockefeller's Next Step for Internet Video Exam?
After the Senate Commerce Committee’s curious April 24 hearings about “The Emergence of Online Video” , lingering - and unanswered - questions remain: Why did Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) call the hearings, and what does he plan to do next to determine (as the session’s subtitle asks) “Is It the Future?” Although the idea of updating the 1996 Telecommunicat ...... Read More
Comments (0)Interactivity Is Back, Better than Ever, IBM Concludes
In IBM’s impressive “Beyond Digital” report, issued this week during the NAB convention, chart 6 really jumps out. It shows that 48% of Americans would like to “control the replay or the angle of the scene” while watching a video show, and that 26% would like to play along with a sporting event. (By comparison, the responses in China are respectively 74% and 78% ...... Read More
Comments (1)Online Video Is What We'll Watch
Between Yahoo’s renewal of five online video series last week, Hearst’s plan to create two online video channels this week and the “Digital Content New Fronts” ad sales pitches starting next week, April’s array of activities underscore the emergence and immense validation of broadband video. Let’s also include the announcement late last month that IFC (AMC ...... Read More
Comments (0)Bob's Back: Johnson's Media Return Is Digital
Robert Johnson, who made his fortune as founder of Black Entertainment Television, is back in the media business, this time with a focus on developing and distributing content “to all media platforms, including broadcast and cable, DVD and Blu-Ray, digital downloads, and digital streaming,” as he puts it. A great emphasis will be on the latter two platforms, if you interpret Johnson& ...... Read More
Comments (0)Two More Ways Microsoft's in Control (or Wants to Be)
A patent for “control-based content pricing” that Microsoft received a few months ago is suddenly stirring a lot of interest as digital advertisers discover its potential to charge viewers dynamically for skipping commercials or for replaying program segments, such as big plays during a sports telecast. Patent Number 8,065,696 would let a content provider (network operator, program ...... Read More
Comments (1)Social TV Is Dying. Viva Social TV.
Among this week’s strangest “rush to judgment” moments is a blog suggesting that social TV has already begun to founder. The “evidence”: a trending chart from Topsy Labs, which tracks a downward slide in the number of references to #socialtv, from nearly 1,000 on February 26 to barely 100 on March 16. In between there was a small spike in mentions, presumably ...... Read More
Comments (4)The Art of New Media Migration
Sometimes you have to consider the poetry, not just the technology, of innovations that affect “business as usual.” So, as I visited the Phillips Collection art exhibit about the effect of photography on Post-Impressionist painters, my thoughts kept drifting to today’s transformative media upheaval. Maybe I had been reading too much that day about the Netflix “threat&# ...... Read More
Comments (0)Duopoly Demise: A World without Motorola or Cisco
Whenever a company professes “110% support” for an ailing element of its operation, the only digit I hear is the final “zero” in that number. Hence, Cisco’s staunch vow to maintain its set-top box business triggered visions of an imminent sale. Cisco’s top executives uttered their utmost support for the STB line-of-business in response to reports that the ...... Read More
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