TV Is Dead – And It’s Future Never Looked so Good

In my last blog about the recent TV Players Workshop presented by TERALINK, I described how satellite operators are reacting to the challenges they face now that consumers want to receive and interact with content through their TV, computer, tablet and mobile devices. Smart content developers are already beginning to satisfy this demand, thanks to rapid advances in technology, high speed broadband networks like that provided by TERALINK, and enhanced satellite capabilities. But at the end of the day, the consumer only cares about the quality of the content.

That’s why I’d like to give you some insight into some ways content providers are reacting to this seismic shift in the TV media landscape. According to Max Hochmuth, Founder and Creative Director of Moast Creative, content will be created for “connected TV.” In his presentation to the 70+ attendees at the workshop, he noted that TV channels, websites, applications, streaming media, podcasts, video-on-demand, Catch-Up TV, Internet TV, Web TV, Mobile TV, Second Screen TV and InAPP TV will deliver content through cable, satellite, IPTV, internet and mobile internet.

This list alone is head-spinning, and that is exactly what is happening to consumers as they are bombarded by the massive amount of content that is becoming available. Mr. Hochmuth sees this as a major challenge for content providers, who need to continually produce interesting material for a variety of media, and advertisers who are searching for new ways to reach consumers. In his view, the consumer must be able to quickly and easily identify, access, organize and interact with specific content. Companies that help consumers cut through this nearly overwhelming clutter of content to find exactly what they want will succeed. And advertisers, by reaching highly targeted audiences, will naturally gravitate to companies providing these opportunities.

An important consideration for TV content developers and content aggregators is that they are no longer the sole source of material. Mr. Hochmuth said “Now, everybody can create video content and distribute it to an audience.” It is no longer expensive to produce high-quality videos, and distribution to a ready audience is easy through YouTube and Vimeo. He related that YouTube alone serves 3.5 billion videos a day, with 48 hours of new video uploaded every minute.

This is a staggering statistic, and it reinforces the fact that content developers need to collaborate closely with groups that develop filtering applications and targeted content packages. Conversely, an exciting future awaits companies that ride this wave of visual creativity and provide platforms that filter and distribute user-uploaded content. Mr. Hochmuth’s company is doing just this by offering Moast TV, an interactive TV platform that presents “human curated videos for creatives.”

So much interesting information was presented during the TV players workshop that I’ll tell you more in following blogs. I’ll also give you more background on TERALINK’s television telecom solutions. As always, I encourage you comment and share your thoughts with me and our readers.