Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz | InfoWorld | IP, iPhone will change broadcast industry | January 10, 2007 12:57 PM

MORE ENTRIES

IP, iPhone will change broadcast industry

January 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

IP, iPhone will change broadcast industry

The impact of companies that distribute user created content like YouTube and blip.tv, plus products like Apple's iPhone and AppleTV, Sling Media's Slingbox, and Samsung's Advanced VSB [A-VSB], will shake up both the media/broadcast and telecom industries.

If you don't believe me, take a look at the site RocketBoom, which hosts a daily, three-minute video blog; or see what happened to its former star Amanda Congdon, who was getting about 1 million hits per day for her show. She is being signed up by HBO and ABC.

But someday, companies like RocketBoom will have huge revenues from advertising, so that they will be able to counter-offer the pot of gold that ABC or HBO offers Internet stars like Amanda Congdon and then, holy smoke, we will really see major changes in the broadcast industry and the mindless junk it offers us.

The way it works now, according to Mike Hudack, CEO at blip.tv, is a small number of companies have a monopoly of broadcast spectrum.

They can go out and negotiate aggressively with any content provider. They simply have to remind the creative side that you can't get to a mass market without them.

And this is also true for telecom and its content providers.

It is true that due to the limited spectrum they make huge bets on content. So, as Hudack says it is actually inefficient for both the creators and the distributors.

The content provider gets paid on the upside, and often paid quite well. But if the show is a hit the distributor/broadcaster makes it up on the backside while the creator just gets to produce more shows.

The new delivery mechanisms, all IP, changes all that.

IP and the digital devices it uses gives everyone a freedom to be heard and seen that is unprecedented in the history of the world.

The question is will it be allowed to continue unfettered by either government or private enterprise trying to take back their monopolies?

Well, let's enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on January 10, 2007 12:57 PM

RATE THIS ARTICLE:

COMMENTS

I just started using YouTube and I'm loving it. I hope it stays this way. For the longest time Hollywood's been in bed with the Pentagon and all the mass media we know has trickled down through that insane set of coporate ladders. It was always suspicious that all the talk shows, news broadcasts, and movies always seemed to push the same opinions on people, resulting in everyone sharing collectively similar feelings about things they otherwise may not have in the first place. Now it's time for a bit of anarchy in the media. It's time for people to teach and learn from each other for a change, and grow culturally through all of that into future generations of individuals and independant thinkers. Kudos to YouTube and any other service that offers the same type of empowerment and freedom to people. Everything else is just an archaic mind control system that deserves to be abandoned.

Posted by: Wormcult.com at January 11, 2007 05:18 AM

Technology White Papers

InfoWorld Technology Marketplace

» Technology White Papers Library

Technology White Papers by Topic

Technology White Papers E-mail Alert