Online Extra: Q&A With Deloitte's Tony Kern

Cable World, August 8, 2005

CW: When the core channel becomes the gateway brand to all these offshoots, what does that do the core channel?

Kern: You start to consume yourself. You need a strategy that's combined with economics that involves viewership trends and branding and loyalty and access. Access is a huge issue. For cable networks, certainly digital networks, access is a huge issue. But it can be modeled out but there may be some short- term pain for long-term gain as people consume things differently and it's available on a handful of different devices.

CW: So even though you're saying that niche content may win this battle, at the same time, it's incredibly tough for new types of niche content to launch today and find, let alone build, an audience?

Kern: I think it is more difficult for new networks to launch than ever before. Some networks, especially cable networks that have been around for a while, have enough clout and loyalty--and some of them are owned by the distributors themselves--to not face that hurdle. If you're trying to do a cold start-up, it's a really difficult time right now. But that's always been a cable issue. When there were 32 channel cable systems and you were trying to launch a new network, that was a pretty difficult thing to do. And it's still difficult right now.

Tips on Adapting to Fragmentation

* Offer content across a variety of media channels and formats;

* Repackage and market content, not just as products but also as services;

* Extend content's life span by offering more digital content that can be quickly and easily packaged, or sold and rented across a range of media (such as DVDs, memory cards, downloads);

* Think on demand: VOD, webcasts, podcasting, mobile phone downloads;

* Add interactivity to content: participation, voting, purchasing, news, games, Web-based chat.

Getting Personal With Tony Kern

Last book read: 1776 by David McCullough.

Summer vacation this year: Coastal Delaware and Maryland's eastern shore.

Favorite hobby: Restoring old homes and collecting music. A toss-up, because I have 3,000 albums.

Number of TVs at home: Two, one is HD.

Favorite saying: "The heights of great men, reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night." --Longfellow

First album: Meet the Beatles.

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