My Back Pages: Anything, Anytime, Anywhere?

Cable World,  May 23, 2005  

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By Paul S. Maxwell

Yeah, sure.

Or is it "Everything, Every Nanosecond, Everywhere?"

Real likely by tomorrow afternoon. Or, perhaps it really will happen.

In our lifetimes.

That's just one of the questions to ask about our business(es) today. This issue of CableWORLD lands at the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau's Cable Sales Management Conference in Chicago, so I thought I'd open a (long) list of questions with some about advertising:

* In the TiVo era (if there really is one), will anyone watch the ads?

* If not, what happens to advertising?

* Could anyone afford to watch TV?

* Would a family ever again convene in the TV room to watch something together?

* Does that even happen today?

* Does America suffer because of the splintering?

* Is a shared TV experience so "fireside chat" old?

* If everything is trending shorter, quicker, pithier (is that a word? or a morphing helmet?), does that mean spot ads will morph down to five seconds? Seven seconds?

* Or will the trend shift and ads get longer and longer and inform as well as sell?

* Or both?

* It sure ain't 1980, but is the era of new linear channels really over?

* Can a new one make it?

* Which one?

* What will "advertising" look like in the new world?

* Will there be advertising as we know it?

* Will anyone ever watch linear television again?

* Or will linear be limited to sports, breaking news and live wars?

* If everything is really "on demand," how do we drive the right viewer to ask for it?

* E-mail?

* Video "Google"?

* Will people really watch TV on cell phones? (That one, I'll answer: You bet your life.)

* Will the video on cell phones come via the programmer, the operator or an aggregator (a "cell phone operator")?

* Why?

* Will "convergence" really happen?

* Or has it?

* Will cable companies become Internet delivery companies with the whole world in IP?

* Will there be "channels" as we know them today?

* Or will a channel be a category from which to choose?

* If so, how do you "brand" that?

* Will "Wi-Max" make everything else moot?

* Can a cable operator co-opt Wi-Max?

* Will television shows morph into the equivalent of video sound bites?

* Would that mean the "MTV-ization" of the whole world?

* Will the two big RBOCs be real competition for cable and satellite?

* Will the mini-RBOCs play, too?

* Can it be a "bundle" if the bundle has separate suppliers? That is, can a discount be really real?

* How does a cable operator get into every business?

* If distance died, how come it takes so long to fly anywhere?

* Is airport security for real? (Sorry, a sore subject.)

* How come Bruce Springsteen didn't update his old song "57 Channels" for the 557 channel environment on his new album?

* How can satellite companies keep gaining so many subscribers?

* Aren't cable operators fighting a better rear-guard action?

* How many homes really have both video supplier technologies?

* Who will win the rather interesting battle between XM and Sirius? One has better technology; the other is spending big on content "names."

And, the really big question(s):

* What's the new business model? Who pays what to whom? Whose customer is it, anyway?

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

COPYRIGHT 2005 Access Intelligence, LLC
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