Since the emergence of cable and satellite television services there has been struggles among platforms to increase their attractiveness to audiences and to draw market share from terrestrial television in developed nations. These struggles have had affected content producers, broadcasters, platform operators and regulators attempting to fashion socially optimal broadcasting systems.
In the first competitive struggles between terrestrial broadcasters and cable operators, broadcasters controlled the highest quality contemporary programming and cable operators primarily competed by offering a wider variety of channels and providing premium movie channels. In many locations broadcasters actively sought regulatory policies to keep their channels from appearing on cable in order to reduce its attractiveness as a competitor.
As cable matured and satellite services emerged, the nature of the struggle shifted as greater subscription and advertising revenues allowed cable networks to offer higher quality contemporary programming. In this competitive phase, terrestrial, cable and satellite operators began struggling for exclusivity of content that would drive audiences to the platforms. Gaining exclusive rights to first broadcast runs of motion pictures, sporting, musical and other events, and high quality original programs became primary goals. In this environment, producers of content and owners of event rights sought to maximize their returns across the platforms. while platform operators sought to maximize their returns by gaining market power through exclusivity. This led to negotiations based not only on transmission rights but exclusivity rights as well, which dramatically pushed up costs of some content—especially sports rights.
As cable garnered a larger audience share, broadcasters that had previously been opposed to carriage of terrestrial signals on cable because asking regulators for ‘must carry’ rules to require cable operators to carry terrestrial channels so they could have additional access to audiences or audiences in places their terrestrial signals had not previously reached. This was especially useful for advertising supported channels, both public service and commercial.
In recent years, the widespread success of cable and satellite platforms and the shift of wealth from terrestrial to other platforms has led broadcasters to demand payments from cable and satellite platform operators for carrying their channels. The newer platforms are resistent and in some nations the struggle over payments remains on-going.
The digitalisation of terrestrial, cable, satellite, and broadband platforms has now created multiple opportunities of distribution of audiovisual materials and is creating a new environment in which additional competitive struggles are taking place among platform operators. At stake are the significant potential gains from advanced paid video-on-demand services and IPTV. Platform operators—DTT, cable, satellite, and telecommunications firms that offer broadband services—are now struggling to ensure that they are not competitively disadvantaged compared to other operators. Operators that control or have high market power over platforms, especially broadband links and systems needed for advanced services or interactive DTT services, will have significant advantages in the next generation of services. Consequently, there is a great deal of effort on the part of major platform operators to acquire access to all platforms and services through ownership, alliances and joint ventures and in many cases there are outright efforts to control those platforms and servcies.
The trajectory and outcome of this competitive struggle is particularly important because it will have significant impact on the range of services and costs for services available to the public. These developments also have significant importance for the relationship between content producers and platform operators because the means of compensation is likely to evolve from current transmission rights and exclusivity rights payments to one involving revenue and profit sharing. This has significant implications to the funding and ways that contemporary terrestrial television programming is created and role of terrestrial broadcasters in the new environment.
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVE MEDIA BUSINESS MODELS HAMPERED BY NARROW THINKING
Media executives around the globe are clamoring for new and alternative business models and industry associations everywhere are holding seminars and conferences on how to create and discover them. There is just one problem: They don’t know what business models are.
When you cut through the rhetoric, you find that most executives are merely interested in finding new revenue streams. Even when you consider firms touted as having best practices in that regard, none have been very successful in establishing them. The reason is simple: The dominant thought about business models is highly limited and far too narrow to solve the contemporary challenges of media industries.
Business models are not merely about the revenue streams. Instead, they establish the underlying business logic and elements. They involve the foundations upon which businesses built, such as companies’ competences, value created, products/services provided, customers served, relationships established with customers and partner firms, and the operational requirements. If you get those elements right, the revenue issues take care of themselves.
The biggest problem of media business models today is not that the revenue model is diminishing in effectiveness, but that most media companies are still trying to sell nineteenth and twentieth century products in the twenty-first century. And they are trying to do so without changing the value they provide and the relationships within which they are provided.
Because of the enormous changes in technology, economics, and lifestyle in recent decades, the needs of customers have changed, they kinds of content they want, and the ways they obtain news, information, and entertainment have been dramatically altered. If media firms do not address these changes in consumer needs and behavior, no amount of worry about revenue streams will stem the fundamental challenge that audiences are leaving traditional print and broadcast media behind for content providers and distribution platforms that better serve their needs.
The content of traditional media products were created in specific technical, economic, and information environments that no longer exist. In order to evolve and prosper media companies must revisit the foundations of their businesses, ensure they are providing the central value that customers want, and provide their products/services in a unique or different way from other media firms.
The range of technologies and distribution and interactive platforms available in the twenty-first century require that firms increasingly see their business activities as cooperative processes requiring coordination and interdependence with external firms and customers themselves. Standing isolated and alone—at arms distance from the customer—is no longer a viable option.
This is not to say that firms must make sudden and dramatic changes in their business models, but they must start revisiting all the aspects to make regular incremental improvements and changes. Questions need to be asked about what is provided, why it is provided, how it is provided, and the entire structures and operations of firms. These need to be addressed first, then the revenue models can be sorted out and improved.
When you cut through the rhetoric, you find that most executives are merely interested in finding new revenue streams. Even when you consider firms touted as having best practices in that regard, none have been very successful in establishing them. The reason is simple: The dominant thought about business models is highly limited and far too narrow to solve the contemporary challenges of media industries.
Business models are not merely about the revenue streams. Instead, they establish the underlying business logic and elements. They involve the foundations upon which businesses built, such as companies’ competences, value created, products/services provided, customers served, relationships established with customers and partner firms, and the operational requirements. If you get those elements right, the revenue issues take care of themselves.
The biggest problem of media business models today is not that the revenue model is diminishing in effectiveness, but that most media companies are still trying to sell nineteenth and twentieth century products in the twenty-first century. And they are trying to do so without changing the value they provide and the relationships within which they are provided.
Because of the enormous changes in technology, economics, and lifestyle in recent decades, the needs of customers have changed, they kinds of content they want, and the ways they obtain news, information, and entertainment have been dramatically altered. If media firms do not address these changes in consumer needs and behavior, no amount of worry about revenue streams will stem the fundamental challenge that audiences are leaving traditional print and broadcast media behind for content providers and distribution platforms that better serve their needs.
The content of traditional media products were created in specific technical, economic, and information environments that no longer exist. In order to evolve and prosper media companies must revisit the foundations of their businesses, ensure they are providing the central value that customers want, and provide their products/services in a unique or different way from other media firms.
The range of technologies and distribution and interactive platforms available in the twenty-first century require that firms increasingly see their business activities as cooperative processes requiring coordination and interdependence with external firms and customers themselves. Standing isolated and alone—at arms distance from the customer—is no longer a viable option.
This is not to say that firms must make sudden and dramatic changes in their business models, but they must start revisiting all the aspects to make regular incremental improvements and changes. Questions need to be asked about what is provided, why it is provided, how it is provided, and the entire structures and operations of firms. These need to be addressed first, then the revenue models can be sorted out and improved.
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