MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1420529
It’s tough/impossible to be good at everything--especially now when the consumer controls what’s viewed, when it’s viewed, where it’s viewed. Back in the old content delivery days, cable companies delivered an overwhelming bundle of choices – 50 to 500+ channels – each with specific day/time shows. Legacy networks blocked their shows. For example, for CBS Monday is NCIS viewing, Tuesday is FBI viewing and so on while news of is at 5, 6, 7, 11 p.m. Want it at a different time? Use the DVR. Perfectly fine if you’re of “a certain age” but with digital streaming, new shows/movies are added to the services constantly. Last year, Netflix released more than one new show/movie a day – 371. The company is on track to spend $17B to increase that number by more than 50 percent this year with content from around the globe for its 210M SVOD subscribers. But Netflix knows there’s more to entertainment than shows/movies. so it has taken a page from Amazon and Apple to expand the options that are available in its walled garden. After all, for even the most dedicated viewer there are only so many drama, comedy, thriller, dating, cooking, travel, talk, sci-fi, cartoon, documentary shows before they need a break. While Netflix’s Reed Hastings has half-jokingly said its competition isn’t other services but sleep, he really knows the SVOD services competition is Fortnight – a multiplayer online video game - and YouTube’s constant barrage of ad-supported, constantly changing user content. Netflix is beginning to cautiously add interactive video experiences and games built around some of their most popular shows. Don’t expect a flood, but there will be a steady series to keep folks in their walled garden and hopefully reduce churn. While Amazon is in the final stages of adding MGM to its growing library of entertainment choices and ad business, it continues to expand its options that have included a complete range of entertainment including books. It may be a stretch, but they do have the deep pockets that are needed and … free shipping. At the outset, Apple has maintained a balance of education, information and entertainment with a robust library of video games, books/periodicals and premium content designed to appeal to its more than 1B device users. But the glamour and promise of synergy, the video story industry hasn’t been easy for the three firms as they might have expected in the early stages, but they learned by going slow and integrating themselves into the fabric of Hollywood. It was easy for Netflix because it gained a strong industry foothold in the red envelope DVD days. Amazon backed into the arena with its global cloud storage/delivery service that studios and content owners learned to trust for every phase of a project. Apple had a strong advantage because of the creative relationship Jobs developed with Disney’s Isner as well as content creators around the industry. But for most conquerors, the industry’s uniqueness and personal relationships have proven impenetrable. Despite the missteps in acquiring DirectTV, WarnerBros and a mountain of debt ($150B plus), AT&T’s CEO Stankey extolled his firm’s entertainment industry accomplishments in the past three tumultuous years when he announced the WarnerMedia-Discovery deal. At the virtual JPMorgan 49th Annual Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference earlier this year when he announced the deal, he proclaimed HBO Max wouldn’t be where it is today if it weren’t for the strength of the combined companies and AT&T’s ability to normalize agreements and get the product/service off the mark. Senior analysts at Global Data said that the WarnerMedia-Discovery deal will force AT&T to get back to basics and attempt to catch up with competitors (Verizon, T Mobile, Comcast, Charter and others) to build