Kiosk.net

…and Terry L. Mitchell of the American Chronicle feels fine. Read!

“Fortunately, led by the apparent impending TiVo-Netflix undertaking, the landscape is about to change and a new era of genuine VOD is about to be ushered in. PC-based broadband VOD services like Cinemanow (www.cinemanow.com) and Movielink (www.movielink.com) have been up and running for several years and are about to broaden their offerings…All of these companies plan to offer almost unlimited amounts of movies, TV shows, sports, specialty programming, and international programs via a set-top box interface between a broadband connection and a TV set. This programming will be culled from the vast internet universe and made available for TV viewing. For a more detailed description of these services, see my related article entitled, “The Coming Television Revolution.”

Yes, this does seem promising. This is what the world has been waiting for for decades!

“Several market tests of VOD were conducted during the 1980’s and the early 1990’s but, because the technology was rather primitive, it did not catch on with consumers. By the late 1990’s, it finally seemed ready and lots of promises were made about the brave new world of VOD. The cable companies were talking about veritable online video stores, which were going to put Blockbuster, et al, out of business. Unfortunately, the reality of VOD has never lived up to its hype. The stuff the cable companies are currently passing off as VOD is nothing more than a glorified version of pay-per-view or a DVR. For the most part, their VOD offerings aren’t any different from the stuff currently playing on the premium channels and/or on pay-per-view. This is what I call “faux VOD.” How lame!”

I see your point, Terry, but I quite enjoy the current on demand technology from Comcast. Although the only offerings are whatever is on the cable channels, that is quite a lot when you get right down to it.

“The only thing really going for the premiums right now is their award-winning original programming; including series’ like “The Sopranos”, “Dead Like Me”, and “Six Feet Under.” Perhaps the premium services could morph into original-programming-only services in order to survive. However, they’d have to seriously increase the number of series’ (and the number of episodes of each) they produce. Perhaps they could also carry longer and/or alternative versions of programs already aired on broadcast television and basic cable. “

Yes, I agree. Many HBO and Showtime subscribers value the original programming very highly. I would say that the strength of shows like “The Sopranos” alone will be enough to keep HBO afloat. However, if the premium channels step up their original programming to combat VOD I see this as only a good thing. Either way, the current On Demand paradigm coupled with premium channels and original programming is probably enough to keep the premium channels up and running, in my opinions, so don’t count Skinemax out just yet.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 3:45 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.