In an interview with Streaming Media magazine, I was asked for my observations, trends and predictions based on the current state and future status of the Streaming media industry. In this article, among other issues, we discussed how models shift from free (ad supported) to pay based content. By conditioning an online audience that highly specific content is a good value proposition, thus smaller content producers have aided the larger aggregators like Hulu and Netflix in gaining market share. The article supports some fascinating findings from comScore for example, "Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed like the fact that it is easy to discover new shows by finding them online; 13% just plain prefer the online viewing experience, and 9% either don’t have a TV or, if they do, don’t subscribe to cable or satellite".
The conversation always wants to shift to "traditional TV Vs online broadcasts", this is not germane to the discussion. The big networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox) will most certainly be around and will continue to produce content for traditional TV. What we have seen is content moving online as well as airing as a TV broadcast. Maybe it is segmented into clips or in other cases it is full episodes but very often it finds its way to a web portal / content site. Where the conversation needs to focus is what we know as Cable TV and delivery. As more and more users find it convenient to download or stream programs to computers, STBs and related mobile devices, Cable becomes redundant as a linear broadcast stream. Just look at the amount of infomercial content that has begun to air closer to prime time. You never saw that ten years ago.
Also of interest in the article is a look at the explosion of STBs (set top boxes) that make it simple to connect an Internet Broadcast stream to a TV, standard or HD sets. At PlayFullScreen we have leveraged this to enhance the viewer experience for the content that many of our clients produce.
Looking forward to the next 3 - 5 years, more advertising dollars are going to find their way into and around streaming video content. 2011 looks to be the breakout year for Internet Broadcasting. If you have content like, sports, entertainment, lectures and how to demonstartions, become your own broadcast media company, the timing has never been better.
You can find the entire article at StreamingMedia.com
2 comments:
I have been reading your blog and other articles provided on your site. Still unclear on the webcast content rights management.
Lets assume you create some content and you become the owner of that content. Say a webcast station streams audio to a public audience. Someone wants to embed that audio stream on their website or provide a link to your stream, do you need to give that party some kinda permission to do that as the owner of the content?
@E-Gor: You raise a good question. If you provide embed code to allow someone to link your content you are thereby giving them rights to link "your" content. You have not given up any rights. On the other hand if someone deep links or copies your content without permission, then they would be in violation of the copyright.
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