Cable industry group says the Web won't kill TV

Canoe Ventures has a plan, tie together the big cable operators to gain scale, target meaningful subsets within, advertise on brand name video content, and add a technological, interactive component. "Canoe has a direct pipeline into about 60 million cable-watching households in the U.S. and provides Internet service to a third of the country. It plans to use that reach." And with the cable box and remote, the ability to communicate with the consumer and get them to talk back. "For example, it's going to add voting and polling so consumers can vote for their favorite player during a football game or answer ...... the final question on "Jeopardy." It's also planning a feature that will allow you to click a button on your remote control to get a recipe, a sample or a coupon, and another feature that allows you to click on a movie ad to see the full trailer or on a video game ad to see a demo." Kinda cool.

Advertising on TV can no longer be a one-way experience. It is meant not only to build brand awareness, but advertisers also need to see meaningful results. It may not be to actually purchase a product or service, but to request more information be sent perhaps immediately to the TV, or perhaps the email address, or mobile phone, or even snail mail. It is gaining that interaction which is Canoe's next step.

The set top box provides valuable information to better target the message to the home; the cable box to interact. We rely on that box to allow the advanced features to work; VOD, DVR, and such. The challenge is getting the consumer to accept the set top box on every set. The home needs to be "connected" so that the box rests behind the set, not on top of it.

Cable Price Wars?

Is price the primary motivator for consumers to switch their cable provider? According to the survey mentioned, the answer is a resounding yes. Still it is interesting to find that cable operators in competitive markets have shown some sub growth. And while the low hanging fruit, consumers buying only one service from cable may switch to telco, the multiple service customer is growing. The triple play packaging strategy has proven very successful at retaining consumers. "It looks like that for all the technical innovation, the promise of the triple-play bundle isn’t about service, but about the bargain. " How elastic that price point is to the decision to switch needs to be analyzed.

But price is a factor and in a recessionary economy, will become more important in the consumer purchasing decision. But it is more than price for the consumer. Some channels, like NY1 and Newschannel 12 in New York, are exclusive to cable; its importance to the consumers' viewing experience will affect the choice they make. Latency, interactive features, and customer service should not be ignored. Some people will switch because of price; for many others, these other factors matter, too.

IBM to Install Broadband Over Power Line For 13 Rural Utilities

First cable operators had to worry about satellite providers, next came telcos, and now power companies. "Under the $9.6 million agreement, IBM will install IBEC’s broadband-over-power-line networks at electric cooperatives in seven states within the next two years." And while IBM is working with rural electric companies to provide broadband deployment, there is nothing to prevent them from taking this technology and deploying across the entire country. For these rural markets, it has not been cost effective to wire these homes for cable. At less than 10 homes a mile, the cost is extravagant. Existing power lines make deployment easier and helps connect the entire country, "closing the digital divide that exists between well-served and underserved America." As the technology improves, broadband over power lines will be able to provide a competitive product that could provide not only data, but phone and video as well, to all consumers.

The Connected Home - Solving The Digital Device Dilemma

There is a lot of talk about the portability of content, TV, PC, Blackberry, Phone, but how about the ability to simply move it effortlessly inside your own home. Record a show on one TV set in the living room to watch on another in the bedroom; move your songs from the pc to play on your kitchen speakers; Call your Tivo to remember to record a show. We are clearly in the early stages and it is clear the technology must operate under a common language to work most efficiently.

One idea that is just coming to fruition are using the cable backbone to connect phone with TV. When a phone call comes in, the TV displays the number, letting you know who is calling before getting out of your seat to answer the phone. Its a first step, but it recognizes the potential of connected devices. It is how cable operators can maintain a foothold on content, especially when it involves an interactive experience. And as these devices and interactions get more complex with the multitude of devices to connect, service provided by the cable operator can be its greatest asset. Most people are tech savvy and need devices that are plug and play; at the same time, they need to know they have an expertise readily at hand to support them if trouble arises. Per Apple's Steve Jobs, "The digital living room should come with the warning 'some assembly required,' he said. It's not an easy thing to set up, as evidenced by the number of people who buy high-definition (HD) television sets, hook them up incorrectly and can't use the service as intended."

As we keep putting more digital devices into our home, connecting them together becomes a necessary next step in this changing entertainment landscape.

Sony Pictures Puts ‘Pineapple Express’ iTunes Download on DVD, Blu-ray

How do you impact the revenue of dvd sales. Differentiation has helped - alternate endings, shorts, games, and other added features. Blu-ray came next, a better picture to complement your HD TV. But dvd sales have been declining as consumers are renting rather than buying content. VOD and streaming have replaced dvd purchases. Well Sony seems to see the writing on the wall and if you can't beat them, join them. Consumers want choice and cable operators have shown that bundling works. The result, is a dvd purchase gives you the stream for free. "The two-disc DVD and Blu-ray Disc offerings of Pineapple Express will include a free download of the film from iTunes, in addition to a downloadable digital copy for PCs or the PlayStation Portable." It is that flexibility that might just breathe new life into the dvd revenue stream. Consumers are seeking mobility and flexibility and Sony seems to be delivering it to them.

CTAM - Cable Has The Best Positioning

The cable industry likes how it is positioned against competition in the content distribution space, despite a bad economy. The use of bundling of communication services - cable, phone, and data, the consumer of these products is less likely to switch or drop services. "Cable subscriptions are still cheaper than taking the family to two movies a month, executives noted. The bigger challenge, going forward, is figuring out how to let consumers move content they have already paid for among the technological platforms they utilize." That mobility seems to be the next step in controlling the customer. Verizon and AT&T each bring a huge fourth component to the mix, wireless. What they have yet to do is build that product into a bundle as successfully as cable has done. And cable is looking to add a wireless partner as well.

"Ellen East, executive vice president and chief communications officer at Time Warner Cable, said her company is looking at a way consumers can authenticate themselves as paid subscribers when logging directly onto programmer’s sites. That authentication would allow the viewers to access television content on their PCs or mobile platforms. " It once again calls into question the relationship between content and distribution. Content owners are keen to control where they exhibit and how they are reimbursed; distribution companies offer the backbone and the ability to aggregate and monetize multiple pieces of content to the subscriber.

Consumers are looking for more ways to control when and where they are viewing content. And as we have become a more mobile society, the content needs to follow us, not us to it. It may not make a lot of sense that consumers may be watching long form content on tiny screens, but it is for them to decide what serves their need best.

Changing Face of Sports On TV

The NFL Network is back again, starting tonight with more football on TV, and less people watching. The trend continues of watching games get moved to higher priced channels.

Remember when tickets to pro games were priced at family friendly rates. Remember when local pro football games were only available on TV when the stadium was sold out; and when it wasn't, the local broadcaster or bank chipped in to buy the seats so the game could be shown on free TV. Remember when TNT and ESPN each got 8 games to air and football fans had to buy basic cable to watch more games. Baseball did it too with regional networks like Prism, Empire, then YES and SNY and others. TBS once the home of Braves games moved them to another network, Sports South to further divide the pot and increase the revenue. Our history is to keep moving our sports off free TV to tiers and now it seems to subscription. Back to football, remember when Direct TV sold a package to every out of market football game to the rabid football fan, causing them to drop their cable subscription to buy further up into a satellite subscription. And the NFL, hoping to further move fans to pay more for access, has built a set of games that only some cable operators are making available for purchase. While the NFL fights to be paid a license fee to make this channel available year round on basic, despite the fact that pro football games are only on for a couple of months. "'I’m disappointed people aren’t seeing the product,' Steve Bornstein, the president of the network, said Wednesday by telephone. 'That’s my frustration. We’re putting out a good product. It’s a product that people seem to be happy with. My viewership is up even though I have less subscribers than I did last year.'”

And what is the next step for the NFL. As the MLB has proved, create a subscription website that offers a mosaic of all the games to choose from. Buy one game a la carte or buy the subscription. TV makers are pushing internet into the TV set. Disney and others have pushed films into Tivo boxes. What is next for the NFL, the same thing. Bypass the cable operator and push subscription over the web and through other "connected" boxes. For those that want to watch their out of market games, it seems the logical next step.

FCC investigating cable TV pricing policies

The FCC continues to have a frosty relationship with the cable industry. While the issue may be how cable companies are tiering channels into higher priced packages, using the transition from analog to digital as the rational, it may just open another can of worms. Consumer confusion over the transition provides perfect cover to push digital boxes to every TV set in a cable home, even though these boxes are not necessary. More boxes, more fees, more opportunity to sell in more services. As the FCC looks into pricing practices, what else might emerge.

And how high can cable pricing go. Under today's economic conditions, will we soon hit the mark where homes opt out of cable and back to their over the air antennae. With a high speed line to augment their viewing habits, cable subscription may start to see a real hit.

Watching TV and Surfing the Web At The Same Time

Did they really underestimate peoples' abilities to multitask? How tough is it to surf the web and watch TV? In our own youth, we listened to radio or watched TV and did our homework at the same time. Could it be that different. The answer is no. But it took a Nielsen study for others to intuitively figure it out.

"The findings, part of a new study released by the ratings measurement company, revealed that broadcasters worried about losing viewers to the Internet may not have to fret after all - and explains a paradox between rising TV viewership and the growing popularity of new media....Overall, Internet usage has grown by about 9 percent compared to last year, the survey found, but TV viewing still dwarfs Internet usage. On average, people spend about 127 hours watching TV each month and 26 hours online."

It is not a zero sum game and internet surfing is not meant to replace TV viewing. And sometimes we even put down our mouses to enjoy the sit back experience of TV exclusively.