Validation and Echoes of My Video Distribution Prediction

The Wall Street Journal ran a piece detailing some of the new deals being cut to mainstream video content straight onto Internet TV. The Journal's article concludes, as I did last fall, here, and here, that these deals

"could undercut the role of cable and satellite companies."

Apparently, we now have Starz and Showtime distributing their content to the web for TV viewing. Nickelodeon is doing the same. Vehicles such as the Microsoft XBox 360 can be the terminus for the program, from which it will be fed to the user's television.

a Forrester Research source pronounced that,

"if you're a cable operator, this is very disturbing."

Indeed, it is. While, as the article points out, the move may not occur overnight, the die is definitely cast.

In a related article in the Journal, two days later, CBS is reported to be plunging headlong into this model, under the aegis of Leslie Moonves. As the owner of old media 'assets,' such as network television, print publishers, and outdoor media, CBS was more or less left holding the bag, when Sumner Redstone split Viacom from CBS.

Although Moonves denied that recent ratings softness was related to the also-recent, bold moves into the digital world, one cannot be so naive as to believe this. Moonves just saw his boss fire Tom Freston, at Viacom, for being too slow to move his businesses to the internet.

In fact, the title of the Journal piece about CBS is "CBS Ties Its Future to Internet Efforts."

Despite the reluctance of many, including my consulting friend, S, to believe that a video content disintermediation from network, via the internet, to television, could be so soon in coming, apparently I am not the only one who sees things this way. Not only are others seeing the implications, but major old-media companies are already throwing in the towel and heading for what they hope are choice pieces of 'real estate' in the new, online content world.

With Apple's recently-announced 'AppleTV' initiative, and Microsoft's XBox360, the wireless links from PC to TV accessory are now in place. All that remains is for prices to begin to slide, and consumers will be capable of controlling the when, from where, and how of their video content consumption, via the internet.

Look for broadcast networks to offer less new or premium content, and, as I wrote in some of the above-linked pieces, producers to vend their content directly from their own websites to consumers, completely bypassing anything but the iTunes "general store," or similar content aggregation websites.