My Back Pages: Zero Sum Competition?

Cable World, April 4, 2005

By Paul S. Maxwell

Baghdad?

Ah, but we're in the one by the Bay!

Glad of that.

Better than that other Baghdad.

And we're in a brand new world, too.

We've got Republicans almost everywhere!

We've got business plans by Wall Street!

We've got competition...even from cell phones(?)!

We've got a shorter convention...orchestrated just like those political conventions these days. Lots of noise; little substance.

(Be sure to check CableFAX Daily each morning for what passes for news; at least the party coverage--like at Monday evening's Faxies--will be complete.)

We've got "platform agnostic" programmers.

Heck, we've even got "platform agnostic" vendors.

And "platform agnostic" headhunters.

And, apparently, "platform agnostic" people.

As, I suppose, it should be.

But, just for the record, as we convene in San Francisco I'd like to remind all of y'all that almost every "new" subscriber that programmers, box makers, software providers and "people" add most likely comes from cable...where most of y'all have already "paid" to acquire that subscriber.

Of course, that isn't 100% true. But, pretty close.

Let's look out into the future a little bit...

Say, one year, five years and 10 years.

What do you suppose the mix will be among cable, satellite and telco?

Today, discounting bundles and using originated video signals as the matrix, it is about 68 to 25 to zip.

In a year, I'd bet 67 to 27 to 2.

In five: 66 to 28 to 6.

In 10: 70 to 27 to 14.

Millions, of course. In an all-digital, all-IPTV world. In fact, in an all-IP world of superfast speeds. All interactive all the time.

Within that mix, I'd bet about 10% of homes will subscribe to video from two or three sources.

(By the way, this also presupposes growth beyond the 1 % new TVHH annual growth because of a continued explosion in second homes.)

While competition can be fun, it also can be destructive unless it drives innovation. In cable's favor, after some fits and starts, innovation is on the upswing...though a mind-set change will have to take place at the two biggest operators. They are, by all current accounts, a little too greedy and little too much NIH...and I don't mean the National Institutes of Health.

Driving innovators to the brink of destruction isn't the best way to build for the future. That goes for all aspects of supplier relationships.

So let's wander the show floor this year with appreciation for all our suppliers and vendors have done for us (so far)...and maybe look for a few new things they can do for us...and we can do for them!

This should be a good, jam-packed show with lots of new stuff and people- -like our new face Kyle McSlarrow--to see.

See you there...

[Copyright 2005 Access Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved.]