Content on Demand

(Note from Guy) this started as a posting at Digg.com that I wrote and since it was so darn long, I decided to inflict it…ahem, enlighten the MyMac readers.

Something that no one seems to be addressing is the future of the entertainment industry. Right now, we still have “Networks” and dedicated cable channels that funnel the shows we want to watch to us at the times they say they’re going to be on. This is changing.

The wave of the future is Content on Demand. You can already see the first effects happening with commercial radio. As soon as the big companies were allowed to, they bought up all the stations and made them as vanilla and as non-offensive as they could. Podcasting (Netcasting whatever) is hurting radio in a big way. WHY? Content on Demand. Why should I have to sit and wait for some Radio personality to come on? Podcasting lets me choose the topics and the delivery method and the time of day that I listen to it. Commercial radio is dying and sattelite radio won’t be far behind.

Video is next. Apple and MS see this, hence the XBox 360 and iTunes/iTV. Cable companies are scared to death of it as are the networks. They pay lip service to it with pay-per-view, but the experience is crippled and non-intuitive.

Imagine this: Instead of turning on your TV and having to look through a guide to see what’s on, you decide what kind of entertainment you want. Comedy, movies, drama, sports, animation, whatever, and a drop down list of shows with brief synopsis appear. Select your show, a brief opening commercial (the price you pay for free content), maybe one more part way through and you watch it when you want. The producers of content wouldn’t have to peddle them to networks or cable channels, they just upload them and hope enough people want to watch it enough for commercials to cover the cost. Advertise them through podcasts or other more popular shows (If you like Bikini Detectives, you’ll LOVE Lesbians with Guns!)

Content on Demand. This is where the industry is heading. Unload that Blockbuster stock because they won’t be around 5 to 10 years from now.