Digital Media Advisory
These days, no matter where you turn, digital media is everywhere. More importantly, everyone is talking about growing Pay TV video on demand (VoD) traffic as it develops against the backdrop of over-the-top video services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouView, and others. Meanwhile, the meteoric growth of smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone and a range of Google Android devices, and tablets based upon smartphone operating systems, has shifted the industry dialogue to mobile devices and multi-screen environments.
But that’s not the language normal people use. It’s usually something much simpler — that they’re thinking about getting rid of cable; that they just downloaded the Hulu app onto their iPad2; or that they just discovered that they no longer need to remember to DVR a show, because it’s available on VoD.
Each of these statements creates tremendous uncertainty for the entire value chain of companies tasked with delivering video media to our homes. At the center of this value chain are communications service providers — wireless carriers, cable operators, internet service providers, and traditional fixed-line carriers.
Communications service providers are faced with numerous challenges in adapting long-term, multi-year business strategies to the day-to-day developments in digital media technology. For example, comScore recently reported that Netflix streaming video traffic now accounts for 30% of U.S. Internet traffic volume — what does this mean for Internet Service Providers that are now carrying this increased volume of data traffic? And what does it mean for cable MSOs that are operating competing video delivery services?
Bridging these gaps and interpreting trends is the nature of our business.
Counting The Source of Nokia’s Future
Jack Ellis at the IAM Blog suggests that the Article One Partners LTE patent research, using Thomson Reuters information, may provide positive signs for Nokia. In this post, I contemplate how I’d turn this LTE research into a meaningful presentation for Nokia executives.
Nielsen: Are We Losing TV Households?
Doom and gloom. Doom and gloom? The number of TV Households in the U.S. is lower for 2012 than it was for 2011, according to Nielsen’s calculations. Many people have pointed to this as a sign of cable-cutting — people getting rid of their Pay TV service in favor of an Internet alternative. Which sounds plausible enough. Plus, Nielsen credits the lower numbers to the obvious reasons. Of course, Nielsen has done this before, and last time (in 1992), nobody was claiming that it was the end of television.