NATPE 2012

I was reminded of two things yesterday:  1. take your shoes off before walking on the beach and 2. Hollywood is smart.  I’m in Miami Beach at NATPE (National Association of Television Programming Executives), the annual convention where content deals get made.  I’m past the sand in my shoes business, but I’m still stuck on the really simple idea that the more content is seen, heard and read the more money a rights-holder makes. Eyeballs equal money. Hollywood gets that.

When I contrast NATPE 2012 with my first NATPE in 1997 the evolutionary change is remarkable. Hollywood has awakened to the fact that content is created to be consumed over and over again, not put a shelf for admiration.  And, based on the presence of technology at NATPE, Hollywood has also figured out how to make money on their content. In a word, it’s the internet.

Here’s the new rub: SOPA/PIPA. Rights-holders need protection. Law abiding websites need protection. Legislation that protects all law abiding parties in this internet entertainment ecosystem is likely needed. I think Congress will figure it out, just the way Hollywood has figured it out.

The collision course between Hollywood and technology has been coming for awhile. I remember testifying before Congress with Jack Valenti, then head of the Motion Picture Association of America. It was clear to us then that Hollywood was preparing for change.

Of course, as you can guess, I’m all for content getting consumed over and over on the internet. We all make money. I also strongly believe in using technology to protect things that are mine or rights that I have been granted. Hollywood and Syncbak are going to work on this together, right now, in fact, at NATPE, as soon as I put my shoes back on.

Photo by: jodimarr

It all began with a 13″ BW Zenith TV

The best Christmas present Santa ever brought me was a 13″ Zenith black and white television, even though I had asked for a Big Wheel like the rest of my friends. While they made it down hills unscathed on their new toys, I simply tried to not die from the cockpit of my Radio Flyer limited edition wagon from the year before. I’m still reeling from the humiliation of being the only kid using “old technology”. How quickly things change. A year earlier, with all of its potential uses, my wagon was all the rage. I was immediately anointed Master of the neighborhood. When the year of the Big Wheel came around, quite frankly, I was caught off guard. Technology does that. It sometimes catches us off guard. Hauling capacity gave way to sheer speed in the winter of 1973. Little did I know, though, that all those nights spent in my bedroom in front of my new 13″ Zenith plotting my return to neighborhood stardom, would eventually pay off.

My bedroom TV meant freedom. No longer was I constrained to watching TV in the Living Room with my parents. While I was no longer Master of the neighborhood, my TV made me Master of my visual entertainment.

I think about that old TV fondly; wished I never gave it to my girlfriend’s sister when she went off to Law School at Michigan. Today I have a better TV, though. That TV is in my pocket right now; it is my Apple iPhone with the Syncbak app. When I’m done writing this I’m heading down to a casino, where I’ll take my TV. Then I’ll head to the Las Vegas Convention Center, where I’ll take my TV. From there, I don’t know where I’ll head, but I’ll have my TV.

2012, while long thought to be “the end of the world” is really a new beginning at least for TV. Broadcasters should be giddy with anticipation about the future of television. Their viewers will never be without a TV. Let’s give them something to watch folks. If it’s the end of the world, so be it. However, I think it’s just the beginning.

CES 2012, Here Comes Syncbak

CES 2012 is just around the corner. As is often the case this time of year, I find myself thinking back to CES 2000, my first. That was the year I launched TitanTV.com, a short 9 weeks after it was born on my kitchen table. Our booth was right next door to another company launch that year, TiVo. Needless to say, their booth was a little larger than ours. Still, our t-shirt line was just as long as their stuffed TiVo thing-a-ma-jigger line.

At the time I was absolutely certain about two things. First, I was convinced that consumers needed a single point of navigation for all their entertainment needs. Second, as cool as TiVo was, it seemed to me a technology which would very quickly become obsolete. Even in the nascent days of the Internet, it was clear to me that a consumer would eventually never actually come into contact with their digital assets. With offerings like Hulu, Netflix and the emerging SilverLight, that prediction appears spot on. Not sure where TiVo goes from here…

I also learned over time it is more important to deliver content than it is to simply show someone what’s on. Therein lies the opportunity for over-the-top. Syncbak, while tiny and mighty, has figured out one thing very well. That is, search is a two way street. While everyone else, including Google, has focused on making it easy for consumers to search for content, we’ve focused our efforts on making it easy for content to search for consumers.

Think about it. For OTT to really become OTT, companies need to look more like Match.com and less like Google, Hulu and others. Syncbak, I think, does that. I’m excited to start unveiling that vision at CES 2012.

If you’ll be there, stop by our Syncbak booth or set up a meeting with us by emailing info@syncbak.com.

Is the success of Internet Television predicated on the demise of cable TV?

In a word? No. Yes. Well, kinda, sorta, maybe…

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting on a luncheon keynote panel about the future of television with co-panelists: John Hane, a top notch regulatory & copyright attorney, Tara Mantra, SVP at TiVo, and Professor Greenwald, Ph.D. from Columbia University. While the topic was the future of television, the undercurrent, from an investor point of view, was to discern whether or not to be bullish on cable.

Cablevision, DISH, Charter, DirecTV, Mediacom, and, yes Comcast, will be providing content to you for many years to come. They aren’t going anywhere. In fact, they’ve committed to bringing you TV Everywhere.

But, if cable is going to thrive for the foreseeable future, that means internet television can’t possibly make it, right?

In a word? Wrong.

Take a moment to connect the dots. How many devices capable of reaching the internet do you use on a daily basis? Likely the answer is at least two, but perhaps three or more. Every day you impact your life with swipes and clicks. Right this moment you can use your smart phone to entertain yourself…likely for hours. Has that caused you to cut the cord? Not likely….at least not yet.

My job, as I see it, isn’t to think about ways for you to cut the cord. My job is to build a platform that brings you the promise of 1:1 television.  Whether or not you cut the cord is entirely up to you. Done right, you’ll watch internet TV whether you subscribe to cable or not.

A few truths to consider…

Advertisers want to reach you, regardless of what you are watching.

None of the abovementioned companies from Cable Town to the Gateway City have anything close to a monopoly on local ad dollars. Not even Google, LivingSocial, Facebook or Groupon can make that claim. Advertisers vote with how they allocate their budgets. How they vote is about to change. When it comes to internet TV, they want in. The guys mentioned earlier in this paragraph don’t have the means to take local advertisers there…at least not yet.

For our part, we’ve stacked the deck. Our partners in all of this have been calling on the local advertiser for 40, maybe 50 years. Syncbak.TV, at launch, will bring you the live and on-demand content, to the more devices, and from anyplace as close to free as humanly possible.

Content is created to be watched over and over and over and over and over…

Buried deep within the DNA of any content creator is to create something that appeals to as many people as possible and to have those people want to watch that creation over and over. It is in the content creators best interest to partner with as many players as possible to get their content seen as much as possible at the highest possible return on investment possible.

Content lives forever. If it is relevant to you, because of internet TV, it’ll eventually find you. This paradigm shift will happen with or without the blessing of the cable-powers-that-be.

When does it (cable as we know it) come to an end?

Did cable kill broadcast TV? No. Did satellite kill cable TV or broadcast TV? No, and no.

What will happen is that cable will soon learn that TV Everywhere is not for everyone. Given that viewing can go from roughly 3 hours per day in the living room to 10+ hours of viewing regardless of time, device or place, the disruptors will get the attention of Cable Town.

My daughters, 21 and 24 years old, are split. One subscribes. The other is 100% FREE over-the-air, plus Hulu, Netflix and etc. My son is 10. Will he ever subscribe to cable, at least cable as we know it today? Not likely.

TV in the future, your TV, will be the result of a collision between broadcast television, advertising, content and the internet. Does that collision care whether or not you cut the cord?

In a word? Hardly.