Deloitte: TV Networks Are Dead

Filed in archive IPTV on April 25, 2005

A major theme on this blog is that the digital media revolution changes many of the rules of business. Earlier, I sketched out a case that on-demand television advertising could grow as large as Internet advertising inside of 7 years. Read More >>Right in sync with that, Deloitte and Touche has a new report that you can download here. Its conclusion: TV networks are threatened with extinction if they don't evolve quickly into something else.

The model of a few dominant network channels funded by advertising is disappearing,the report concludes, though it also says networks can adapt by evolving into "a multi-dimensional, highly adaptable, customer-focused model."

What that means is extending the brand into areas including interactivity and on-demand offerings and new distribution channels like wired and wireless networks.

That suggestion mirrored one by a Magna Global study Wednesday that pointed to the increasing delivery of TV via peer-to-peer computer networks internationally and advised that distributors need to tap into that change rather than take a purely defensive stance against it through lawsuits and court challenges.

Broadcasters have countered that they need to find better ways to protect billions of dollars worth of digital content before they start launching their livelihoods into the digital stream.

The report's suggestions include:

Offer content across a variety of channels and platforms.

Re-package and market content as services as well as products.

Extend content lifespan by offering more digital content that can be easily packaged and sold or rented as DVD, VHS, memory cards, and wired and wireless electronic downloads.

That repackaging could take the form of:

On-demand - Warehousing audio and video for web-casts, radio, mobile phones, and Video-on-Demand.

Interactivity - Voting, purchasing, news, games, polls, comment/questions, and web-based chat.

Events - Tie-in events like the American Idol concert series.

In essence, the report is saying, start looking more like your broadband competition or risk being buried by it.