Wilson Mizner and Hulu’s IPO
Posted on August 23, 2010
Last week The New York Times broke news that Hulu is considering an IPO. The first line of the story identifies Hulu as a “rapidly growing online hub for television and movies” that could be valued at “more than $2 billion.” Not only was the news surprising, but the favorable coverage in a normally reputable newspaper was perplexing. However, as I pondered the matter recollections of the wit and wisdom of Wilson Mizner proved to be insightful.
Download Audio Narration to iPod, iPad, and iPhone (six minutes).
Like Dorothy Parker, Mizner is remembered more for his witty repartee than specific works. He was born a month before the battle at the Little Big Horn in 1876 and died at the bottom of the Great Depression. During the intervening fifty-six years Mizner participated in the Klondike Gold Rush, befriended Wyatt Earp, married the Yerkes widow whose first husband was the inspiration for a Theodore Dreiser trilogy, managed the Rand Hotel in New York where he posted such notices as “Guests must carry out their own dead” and “No opium smoking in the elevators”, swindled Florida real estate investors in the 1920s, managed Hollywood’s Brown Derby restaurant, and wrote movie screenplays including 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing staring Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis.
Read more…
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Monetizing TV Shows and Movies on the Net
Posted on August 6, 2010
Most film producers and other companies associated with conventional television fear the Internet. They don’t see how they can profit from it. Instead they worry it will erode revenues from conventional sources, replacing them with lower amounts. To date their concerns are well founded.
For audio to iPod, iPhone, and iPad click here (six minutes)
For example, few Internet users will pay a subscription fee for shows already on television. Moreover, the Internet provides no “carriage fees” like those paid by satellite and CATV operators to the networks — and indirectly the producers. While movie downloads admittedly provide revenues from sales and rentals, they are at least partly at the expense of DVD rentals and sales. Finally, online advertising revenues at video streaming sites like Hulu and YouTube are pathetically small by comparison to those available from conventional television. Much like the record labels, it’s likely that the Hollywood studios and television show producers wish that the Internet had never been invented. Read more…
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Defeating Internet Video Threat
Posted on August 4, 2010
Some contend that Internet Video will never achieve its promise in the United States because the parent companies of the dominant Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are hostile to it. More specifically, CATV operators and Telcos consider it a competitive threat to their conventional television subscription services. Furthermore, the threat intensifies as growing numbers of consumers discover that modern televisions can also be used as display monitors for computers or other appliances capable of accessing the Internet.
Download audio narration to iPod, iPad, or iPhone here. (seven minutes).
As a result, it is argued that the ISPs will adopt usage-sensitive Internet pricing. In short, they will charge consumers for the bandwidth consumed thereby making it uneconomic to watch television shows and movies via the Internet instead of over conventional subscription services. Although consumers will object, their protests will be impotent because there are no realistic competitive alternatives to CATV and Telco ISPs. As AT&T Labs research compellingly documents, metered pricing of communications services severely restricts per-subscriber network usage. Read more…
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How Cord-Cutting Will Happen
Posted on July 15, 2010
Most anyone having more than six months experience with a computer-to-TV connection to get unlimited Internet access at the television realizes that cord-cutting is inevitable. It is not a question of “if”, but merely of “when”. But for businesses that must adapt the more important question is how it will happen. Once that process is understood, inevitability is hard to deny and constructive planning can begin.
Download audio of narrative for iPod, iPad, and iPhone here.
For the uninitiated, “cord-cutting” refers to a consumer’s decision to discontinue a television subscription service and replace it with various Internet activities on the TV screen. Generally Cable operators, media companies, and conventional industry researchers dismiss the possibility. For example, earlier this year one prominent industry analyst labeled it an “urban myth” because TV subscriber numbers continued to climb. Read more…
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Will Apple Make Televisions?
Posted on July 5, 2010
Unless it enables consumers to conveniently upgrade them without buying an entirely new set, Apple is unlikely to manufacture televisions. Instead it will more probably offer HDTV-compatible appliances that permit abundant Internet access on the TV screen.
Download audio narration to iPad, iPhone, or iPod.
Typically consumers buy a new TV every ten years. Presently a typical 52-inch model costs about $1,200. Presumably an Apple version would add Internet access, memory, and electronic intelligence thereby lifting the price even higher. If it adds as much memory and intelligence as contained in the MacMini, a hypothetical 52-inch Apple television would almost certainly be tagged over $2,000. (The MacMini is an Apple computer typically sold without a monitor.) Given such a price consumers would probably replace old sets at about the same once-per-decade rate. Read more…
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Apple’s New Move into Living Room
Posted on June 28, 2010
A couple of weeks ago Apple introduced a “redesigned” MacMini computer. It’s the unit’s biggest upgrade in five years making it especially attractive as an Internet gateway and media center for televisions.
Download audio to iPod, iPad, or iPhone.
A MacMini is a computer typically sold without a monitor. Increasingly it is often mated to an HDTV, just like a DVD player or video game console. As a result, the television becomes a gigantic computer monitor. Users often buy a wireless mouse and keyboard in order to control the MacMini from a convenient viewing distance such as the living room sofa.
The unit includes lightning fast dot-11n WiFi enabling it to connect over a home network to the Internet. Consequently, broadband ISP subscribers get high speed Internet right on their televisions. They can choose to watch conventional TV with a one-button click on their TV remote by selecting, for example, the CATV input. Alternately, they can chose Internet access on the TV with a one-button click on the same remote by selecting the socket where the MacMini is connected. Read more…
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Evaluating Apple’s Go-to-Market Analysis
Posted on June 14, 2010
During the past few months Apple twice implied the Digital Living Room of the Future is not a good market for the company. In February Tim Cook said that AppleTV remains a “hobby” since its potential is considerably smaller than the markets for mobile and tablet devices. Partly in response to GoogleTV, earlier this month Steve Jobs amplified Cook’s point with analysis.
Download audio to iPhone, iPad, and iPod here. (six minutes)
Essentially, Apple minimizes the Digital Living Room because there can be no “go-to-market” strategy. Jobs reasons that modernizing television requires replacing conventional set-top boxes with better designs. While readily conceding that Apple could develop such designs, he assumes they could not profitably sell them because the cable and satellite industries rent current set-tops for artificially low fees cross-subsidized by programming charges. By way of example he notes that TiVo, ReplayTV, Roku, Vudu, and similar products failed to tap into the mass market. Read more…
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Future of Cultural Programming
Posted on June 7, 2010
Phil Leigh
Last year Michael Kaiser of the J.F.K. Performing Arts Center lamented that Arts Programming was vanishing from TV. Since most PBS stations lack the money for quality recording of local performances, he concludes that PBS should reorganize. Instead of relying upon local affiliate productions, he prefers that the parent organization “determine the best in American arts and fund its broadcast across the nation”. Presumably that means PBS must reduce its financial contributions to affiliates, or get Congress give more than the $400 million it presently donates annually – 90% of which passes thorough to local stations.
Download Audio Narration to iPod, iPad, and iPhone here.
Like many leaders of slowly changing businesses, Kaiser fails to recognize how fast the Internet already shifted the ground under his feet. While focusing on PBS and taxpayer subsidies, he neglects to notice that a critical mass of top-quality cultural programming already populates the Net. One example is YouTube which provides three advantages over conventional television. First, it’s free. Second, viewers may watch at anytime instead of designated broadcast times. Third, it’s searchable. Read more…
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