There was a classic article in the WSJ on Thursday. As you may know, the local telephone companies (Verizon, et al) have announced plans to get into the cable television market. Part of this is of course the perpetual quest for new growth. Part of this is to have a weapon to use to beat back the cable companies who are using VoIP to come after the telephone companies.
In Seeing What's Next (shameless plug alert), we talk a lot about how the best way to go into these battles is to try to take some kind of asymmetric approach that your opponent doesn't want to respond to. The cable companies seem to be largely moving in this direction with their low-cost, good enough VoIP solution (just a matter of time before one of them buys Vonage ...). The phone companies seem to have missed this chapter. Everything I've seen suggests an all-out approach going right after the core of the market with a largely me-too product. The hope has been to have everything the cable companies have and layer on top some additional services that take advantage of the telephone network's flexible architecture.
Well, surprise, surprise. Sensing a potential threat to their core business, the cable companies are trying to figure out how to do switched services that allow them to match some of the new benefits the telephone companies hope to provide.
Confused yet? Read Thursday's WSJ article ("Cable Operators Rush Services To Keep Edge", registration required). It's clear a battle is a-brewin'. Hard to bet against the cable operators here unless the telephone folks can figure out a disruptive path.
The Looming Battle for Your TV
Scott D. AnthonyPosted by Scott D. Anthony in Comments (1)
Discussion
Posted: Tuesday, August 16th, 2005 - 7:18 am EDT
Dare I suggest that the looming battle for TV might be a hollow victory.
See Mckinsey's brief "Marketing to Teens Online" by Stephen J. Hasker and Andrew Somosi, The McKinsey Quarterly, 2004 Number 4. If our teens are any reflection of the forthcoming generation of consumers, it does not look like the next generation will be watching much TV.
Massive incorporated http://www.massiveincorporated.com/ is already looking to adapt advertizing to this new "disruptive innovation" in entertainment media.
The different peformance characteristics include a new non linear learning and entertainment format where teenagers join friends in immersive interactive worlds (MMOG's) whilst at the same time chit chatting on text messaging and posting to bulletin boards...a completely multi-tasking environment that brings performance attributes that make television seem so passive, dull and linear. In this entertainment world, "expansion packs" are becoming the equivalent of new fall season network programming.
I would be interested on your thoughts on the potential impact of this "disruption", and whether incumbent Television networks will be able to mount a defence. Like the early days of the Sony transistor radio...this new entertainment innovation has initally gained traction in a new market niche (teenagers who want to play and have fun more conveniently than before away from their parents...a group with a job to be done).
See also http://www.mmogchart.com/ for some interesting data about interactive entertainment...there have been some successes and some flops in this market.
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