IPTV Issues

Will it be easy for the telecom companies to acquire, license and distribute existing commercial video content?

Can the telcos with little or no experience with the licensing of video content, hope to become smart players of this emerging industry?

For now this remains an open question:

"It won't be easy. Already, the entertainment industry is entwined in a web of complicated and often exclusive licensing deals, and getting the right content will be a challenge for the telcos."

This is what Bob Greene, senior vice president of advanced services for Starz Entertainment Group LLC told his audience a few days ago, at the 13th annual Symposium, “Next Generation Media Networks".

"Movies are typically licensed on an exclusive basis for about eight or nine years, says, after which licensing is finally opened up to general broadcast rights." Greene also said that breaking into these exclusive relationships is the biggest barrier to those who want to start delivering video content over IP.
(Source: Lightreading IPTV vs. Me Too TV )

Reed Hasting, founder and CEO of Netflix, adds that "the industry had reached a crucial juncture", and where what we are left with it's a choice between an open and highly diversified grassroots Internet-based TV panorama vs. a highly-commercial, secure and controlled multiplicity of private networks modeled after traditional cable and satellite TV operations governed by major world telcos.

Unfortunately what telcos are doing, is dumping large amounts of money into creating IP-based versions of existing cable and satellite offerings, without any understanding of what the new emerging paradigm of Internet of Video, has really to offer.

A great model for marketing video and television-type content through secure and protected IP telecom networks could be modeled after what successfully done by NTT DoCoMo in Japan, where the telecom giant takes a cut of the overall sales and subscriptions revenues in exchange for providing new content providers with tools and services to market their content on their distribution network.

What is Internet Television

So, what is then the alternative open internet of video that Jeremy Allaire of Brightcove evangelizes about?

• Internet Television, is quite different in terms of the model for the consumer, the publisher and for the infrastructure used itself.
• In the Internet of Video, as Jeremy Allaire calls it, or Internet Television approach, the model is open to any rights holder, as it is based on the same publishing model that exists on the Web: anyone can create an endpoint and publish that on a global basis.
• Internet Television is open to any rights holder no matter whether this is an individual creating a video for a very small audience or a traditional publisher that offers linear cable channels.
• The Internet Television approach the publisher has a direct communication channel to the consumer.

The content publisher is able to directly reach the consumers on the multiple devices independent of any specific carrier or operator. Internet Television is in fact an approach that also attempts to be as device independent as possible. Thanks to open standards and formats which have helped create this opportunity, Internet Television wants to be just as the web is today. Accessible from any type of computer and connection around the world..... and not physically tied to the user living room or set-top box.

• Internet Television will be deeply integrated into the existing Internet user experience and into the mechanisms that users use to access services, discover resources and share experiences in the Internet world, in the near future will merge with the world of video and television services seamlessly.
• Internet Television is an outgrowth, not an overhaul. Internet Television is able to ride on existing lowest common denominator infrastructure including broadband, ADSL, wi-fi, cable, satellite doesn't require new infrastructure to work or provide value to users.
• Internet Television uses a global reach business model, where video and television services that are offered in one geography can be accessed from any other global geography (as long as content distribution rights are in place).
• Internet Television promises access to many new products and much broader range of programming that we have been accustomed to retail video world and dramatically more control, as to when and where and how users can access that video/tv programming."

"An open platform gives content providers control over the brand and customer relationship," says Jeremy Allaire of BrightCove.

This, he feels, will create an explosion of niche content that people can access directly over open, IP-based systems. "Nearly every small niche can be economically supportable."

And also:

"Beyond looking at Internet Television as an ideal platform for marketing and distribution, it is interesting to think about how the Internet facilitates a distributed and collaborative environment for media production.

It won't surprise me to see new "media collectives" modeled after open source projects that form together to put forth a particular view point - be it for entertainment or informational programs.

Is this a missing piece to create a platform for citizen's media? "

But the question is: Which one would YOU want, and why?