Comcast's Big Internet Video Bet

There have been several pieces in the last month or so in the Wall Street Journal concerning Big Media's attempts to grapple with video on the internet.

Will consumers figure out how to watch video, even television programming, while bypassing broadcast and cable networks? Will it be possible, with the aid of boxes supplied by a number of companies said to be developing them, including Apple, to surf the web for content to play over your television, without resorting to using your cable television signal? In effect, finally treating your television as a giant monitor, having a web-enabled remote control, and accessing, say, producers' websites to buy serial program content, or movie libraries, directly?

Comcast sure hopes not. They have been busy trying to collect and organize a group of licenses, in order to provide 'direct' access to web content through their network. In other words, providing a sort of intermediated web-access, to stop their customers from terminating the entire cable television data, and revenue, stream.

Will it work?

When I first read the Journal's piece in late June, I thought Comcast might have a chance. It's expensive, and risky, but what choice do they have? I like seeing businesses at least go for the big strategic advantage, provided there's a reasonable chance of success, based upon consumer behavior and technical or other relevant factors.

Lately, though, I'm thinking differently. The WSJ's digital report a few weeks ago featured a long piece consisting of an interview with Disney's Bob Iger. In it, Iger casually mentioned licensing content to anyone Disney thinks will help them get more reach and revenue. He mentioned Comcast- but clearly as a non-exclusive license. This was a valuable tidbit, in my opinion.

Now, it seems, Comcast is probably collecting a variety of mismatched, non-homogeneous content licenses, some or many of them non-exclusive. This means that they will be in no position to actually stop customers from accessing content elsewhere. Comcast just hopes it will be easy enough to do it "their way," for their monthly television cable fee, to prevent most of their customer base from dropping half of their Comcast service and going surfing for the rest via high-speed digital broadband.

It should be very interesting to see how this plays out. On one hand, I can see plenty of customers taking a semi-packaged solution to this situation. On the other hand, I could also see plenty of early-adopters doing otherwise, being as this is a 'technology' product to begin with. That is, it's not like buying or using something rather mundane, like, say, a washing machine, an iron, or your toaster.

No, this is "technology" coming hard and fast into Comcast's customers' living rooms. We'll soon see if their stop-gap solution to stem their customer base from going surfing directly onto the web for video content works. Or if it proves to be their last-ditch, expensive rear-guard action as they sink into oblivion, along with once-mighty forces like your old telephone land-line provider.