Two recent news stories — TimeWarner’s “TV Anywhere” plan and the Hulu/TV.com grudge match — got me thinking the television world hasn’t learned anything from the music industry’s failure to deal with digital consumption inevitabilities. Although both ideas and executions are light-years ahead of anything the music industry came up with to confront seismic distribution and consumption challenges, both plays reveal a weakness that portend infighting and ultimately digital defeat at the hands of consumers who do not care about copyright or the interest of bickering, competitive rights holders who prefer domination over cooperation.
Unless and until the companies — all the content providers and all the cable operators — get on the same page, no amount of good ideas will work. Hulu and TV.com are great ideas both from their ease of use and high quality delivery methods. But the intensely competitive networks who birthed them can’t bring themselves to lay down their arms and work together to build a new future. When they controlled the means of distribution via network and cable TV, they could be as cut-throat, petty, and vindictive as they wanted. But with the continuing growth of the torrents and other means of streaming and saving your video watching for later on an assortment of digital platforms, the game is over. They need to put EVERYTHING out there now.
The current pennies earned from digital in comparison to the billions earned from network and cable have enabled them to deny the urgency. But no one can honestly say these earning numbers will not flip in the coming years. How long is anyone’s guess.
If you want a worst case scenario, just take a look at how the record business fell from its money-printing mountaintop in just one year. I often think about how in 2001 Columbia Records went from having its best year ever in its 100 year history to having their financial bottom fall out the very next year. Short of financial smoke and mirrors, the company has hemorrhaged billions and never turned a profit since it’s 2001 highpoint. The tipping point happenedthatquickly. From riches to rags in one year. Scary.
I understand there are limitations to the television and music industry comparisons, but the desire of the consumer is the same. They want it all. And they want it now. The easy illicit means to deliver on that desire grows greater every month. And the more the television and cable businesses prefer to negotiate, haggle, and undercut the more they will watch the future slide through their fingers. When the tipping point comes, it will be too late to innovate. Cooperate now or watch your face a bleak future.
