Nick
01-09-06, 07:11 AM
Guest Editorial
SkyBOX: CES Mare's Nest
by Evie Haskell evie@Mediabiz.com
The 28 football fields of exhibits, the paid keynotes, "proprietary" blackouts, ringing bells and endlessly snaking taxi lines are finally finished and along with the debris of name badges and show dailies, CES 2006 is history. So what did we learn from this year's consumer electronics' extravaganza? Three key lessons stand out:
1 - Everybody and their Aunt Madge is determined to gain a foothold in the consumer entertainment/communications space. (Among the paid keynotes this year were addresses from Google's Larry Page and Yahoo!'s Terry Semel ... not exactly your quintessential consumer electronics players.)
2 - The theme song from one end of the entertainment spectrum to the other is "personalized" entertainment, in terms of when, where and, perhaps most significantly, what consumers will watch. (A recent column in the The Wall Street Journal, for example, argues that old-style blockbusters are doomed to become a thing of the past. Viewers, the writer argued, won't accept mass-market approaches when they can have their own personal interests catered to.)
3 - The future of this new personalized entertainment lies in none-other than the Internet, via IPTV services. (No big surprise here: Broadband featured in just about everybody's press releases, even when the tie-ins consisted mainly of smoke and mirrors.)
So those were the key lessons. Now, what do they mean?
In our first SkyBOX since smashing our shoulder on a steep slope at Copper Mountain (SkyBOX has NOT enjoyed being in a sling), we will hazard three predictions based on our three key lessons from CES 2006.
1 - There're gonna be some spectacular media-play failures across the next few years. That's inevitable when everybody's Aunt Madge wants to be in the same space. Of course, who those failures will remain to be seen. But a lot of bets are currently being placed on the telcos. We're not so sure of that. Given their deep pockets, desperation and decades of political clout, we suspect that some of the Bell babies will manage to gain quite decent (though not run away) media strongholds.
2 - On the subject of personalized entertainment and niche programming: We think there's a very real (and likely closer than currently imagined) ceiling to the appeal of niche programming. Mass entertainment will still entertain the masses. Just look at current TV fare such as CSI and Law and Order if you doubt that. However mass entertainment that's less than entertaining ... ah, that we think will most certainly be swallowed in the maw of niche programming.
3 - As for the move to IPTV ... We say look for some big, BIG battles ahead and not just in the digital rights arena. The natural evolution of a system where consumers can pick and choose their own programming is programming that's not sold just by the network but by the show. And when we can all buy individual shows to suit our own tastes and schedules, what's the point of having a network? Indeed, what's the point of having a platform operator? If they can sell their fare directly to consumers, why should the producers of, for example, The Sopranos pay Comcast or DirecTV to carry the network that carries their show? Why not just cut out the middleman and go straight to paying customers via the Internet? Of course by that time the folks who own the broadband internet pipes might have started charging the folks who want to put content in those pipes, which raises a whole mare's nest. But we figure we've done enough for today.www.SkyReport.com - used with permission
SkyBOX: CES Mare's Nest
by Evie Haskell evie@Mediabiz.com
The 28 football fields of exhibits, the paid keynotes, "proprietary" blackouts, ringing bells and endlessly snaking taxi lines are finally finished and along with the debris of name badges and show dailies, CES 2006 is history. So what did we learn from this year's consumer electronics' extravaganza? Three key lessons stand out:
1 - Everybody and their Aunt Madge is determined to gain a foothold in the consumer entertainment/communications space. (Among the paid keynotes this year were addresses from Google's Larry Page and Yahoo!'s Terry Semel ... not exactly your quintessential consumer electronics players.)
2 - The theme song from one end of the entertainment spectrum to the other is "personalized" entertainment, in terms of when, where and, perhaps most significantly, what consumers will watch. (A recent column in the The Wall Street Journal, for example, argues that old-style blockbusters are doomed to become a thing of the past. Viewers, the writer argued, won't accept mass-market approaches when they can have their own personal interests catered to.)
3 - The future of this new personalized entertainment lies in none-other than the Internet, via IPTV services. (No big surprise here: Broadband featured in just about everybody's press releases, even when the tie-ins consisted mainly of smoke and mirrors.)
So those were the key lessons. Now, what do they mean?
In our first SkyBOX since smashing our shoulder on a steep slope at Copper Mountain (SkyBOX has NOT enjoyed being in a sling), we will hazard three predictions based on our three key lessons from CES 2006.
1 - There're gonna be some spectacular media-play failures across the next few years. That's inevitable when everybody's Aunt Madge wants to be in the same space. Of course, who those failures will remain to be seen. But a lot of bets are currently being placed on the telcos. We're not so sure of that. Given their deep pockets, desperation and decades of political clout, we suspect that some of the Bell babies will manage to gain quite decent (though not run away) media strongholds.
2 - On the subject of personalized entertainment and niche programming: We think there's a very real (and likely closer than currently imagined) ceiling to the appeal of niche programming. Mass entertainment will still entertain the masses. Just look at current TV fare such as CSI and Law and Order if you doubt that. However mass entertainment that's less than entertaining ... ah, that we think will most certainly be swallowed in the maw of niche programming.
3 - As for the move to IPTV ... We say look for some big, BIG battles ahead and not just in the digital rights arena. The natural evolution of a system where consumers can pick and choose their own programming is programming that's not sold just by the network but by the show. And when we can all buy individual shows to suit our own tastes and schedules, what's the point of having a network? Indeed, what's the point of having a platform operator? If they can sell their fare directly to consumers, why should the producers of, for example, The Sopranos pay Comcast or DirecTV to carry the network that carries their show? Why not just cut out the middleman and go straight to paying customers via the Internet? Of course by that time the folks who own the broadband internet pipes might have started charging the folks who want to put content in those pipes, which raises a whole mare's nest. But we figure we've done enough for today.www.SkyReport.com - used with permission