World Theatre Serenades MSOs

Cable World, Nov 25, 2002

Byline: ANTHONY CRUPI

No one could have known it then, but when MTV launched The Real World back in 1992, it was tacitly acknowledging that the endless parade of promotional videos it offered as programming had run its course. The network's timing couldn't have been better. Its hottest stars either refused to make any more videos (Pearl Jam), had entered some sort of narcotic fugue state (Guns 'n' Roses) or had become too disconcertingly weird to look at anymore (Michael Jackson). Video may have killed the radio star, but the seven obnoxious loftmates of The Real World and the subsequent raft of reality programming they inspired dispatched the video star just as mercilessly.

Fair enough. Business plans change throughout the life of a company, no matter what it sells. Mission statements get tweaked, focus gets shifted, Bruce Springsteen gives way to nose-picking bike messengers and that whole jolly Jackass crew. Every generation gets the entertainment it deserves.

None of this comes as news to World Theatre executive chairman and CEO Robert Summer. A music business player who's been around long enough to have trafficked in vinyl, Summer has served as president of RCA Records and Sony Music International and was chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In helming World Theatre, Summer is calling on his music world connections to help launch a cable channel dedicated to music and e-commerce.

The aim of the as yet unnamed channel is to enable cable subscribers to purchase albums through their set-top boxes. As the viewer watches music videos, an interactive catalogue will allow for the transfer of the relevant files from the server to the set-top. From there, the files can be burned onto an audio CD or sent to other devices in the home.

"The seed of this idea goes back to mid-1999," says Summer. "Clearly, we were alone in thinking of television as the medium of distribution, as the music business was fixated on the Internet."

It took some time to convince the music world to look away from their PCs and refocus on their TVs, but Summer was able to leverage his industry connections to convince BMG North America to get behind the channel. That support helped assuage digital rights management (DRM) fears and in so doing, won World Theatre a measure of acceptance from the record industry.

EVP of IT and operations, Randy Daniel, says the network should launch in April or May 2003, with service being offered to users running Motorola DCT-2000 or Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 2000 set-tops. "Things don't happen overnight," Daniel says. "We've had to make a road map to aid cable operators in seeing the value of the service and the ease with which it can be rolled out."

As more advanced boxes are introduced to the market, the e-commerce opportunities will become more advanced as well. Physical CDs will be shipped by mail in the early going, as the set-top will function as an analog to an online service along the lines of an Amazon.com. Once the thicker-client boxes begin to roll out, World Theatre will allow for the purchase of digital files.

Summer says that the company is currently discussing carriage deals with a number of MSOs, and expects to have at least one in hand by the end of the year.

In many ways the proposed World Theatre experience is similar to that which can be found today on MP4.com, an online branch of Vivendi Universal's music arm. The key difference is that it is far easier to protect files transferred via a set-top than through an ISP address. "We've gotten the record industry to lighten up on some of their security concerns," Daniel says. "That makes for a more user-friendly interface, unlike that of a PC."

MP3.com spokesman Steve Curry says the electronic music file has supplanted the CD as the medium of choice for younger listeners. "The stereo has been replaced by the PC as the essential piece of equipment in a teenager's room," Curry says. "I could see how this would be appealing to both music lovers and the record companies."

The channel may prove to be a boon all down the line. Jon Klein, a director of music videos for U2 and Oasis, says he'd applaud a venture that brings 24-7 video back into the culture. "It's really become a lost art form," Klein says. "Video establishes a connection with the artist that an MPEG file just can't."

THE NEXT QUESTION:

*Will cable operators sing along with World Theatre's music-over-set-top distribution plan?