There are only three media companies that count now in the UK, they are the BBC, Google and Sky.

Small things are sometimes harbingers of a wider picture. The above conclusion was precipitated by the news that one of the presenters of one of the UK’s major TV channel’s longest running programme is resigning after reportedly having her salary cut by 90%.

This shows that UK commercial channels are having to face reality. The only place ‘stars’ will be able to find the salaries that they have grown accustomed to will be the BBC, who can liberally spend taxpayers’ money as they see fit, paying ludicrous salaries that would never be matched in the commercial sector.

So, where have the commercial channel’s stars’ salaries gone – well to largely to Google. The vagaries of TV advertising have been replaced the measurable certainty of click thru advertising.

Sky is largely immune to the advertising model, deriving much of its income from paid for TV and using sports as the leverage for this.

The media world is set to become a much poorer world, unless you tax your viewers….

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New Order

Well, hiking on a rock in the Indian Ocean, actually… This blog has gone for a much deserved holiday.

Thanks to all contributors, commentators and correspondents for their thoughts, disagreements and input online and offline. Please keep them coming.

Back soon with more thoughts, controversies, inside information and off-the-wall ideas.

Excerpted from:
Gone Fishin’

It’s a busy old time in IPTVTimesland with one news story after the other breaking in this sector at the moment.

Google are planning to ‘commission’ Family Guy’s creator to make Adwords driven video content (actually it’s a rev share agreement). Meanwhile, there are reports that they are struggling with implementing a long tail video ad system and also have no plans to introduce Ad Planner, the media agency planning tool that has taken US agencies by storm.

UK local news publisher Trinity Mirror is seeing its ad revenues – and share price, decline precipitously, further indicating the effect of the ‘Google Gap’.

ITV are complaining again, this time that they don’t have a level playing field next to Google and Apple and they have a serious point, their problems with Kangaroo (also called SeeSaw)notwithstanding.

But most significant news of all is my long held prediction that Kangaroo would be bounced in front of the Competition Commissioners. And lo, it has come to pass.

Credit:
News Roundup

NewsCorp are selling down their majority holding in conditional access company, NDS. This is a very profitable company that provides the security for Sky’s set top boxes, but they have been held back by their parentage – NewsCorp’s rivals are naturally reluctant to let one of their major competitors run their security. The majority shareholder now will be private equity house Premira, who also hold a significant stake in Germany broadcaster ProSiebenSat and UK production company All3Media.

So, a surprising deal in these illiquid times, but a very good one for all the parties involved, I suspect.

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Top Deal

After a recent catch up with Microsoft, and in light of the recent retirement of its founder, I thought that it may be worth reflecting on what role Microsoft are likely to play in the future of the Internet TV industry.

In general, the company seems to be leaning toward the enterprise and appears to see the move of applications away from the desktop to the server as a done deal. However, their approach and pricing for this market – especially for their excellent database products – remains restrictive. Aaded to this is the fact that the media sector is a very thin slice on their revenue pie chart, so has never really commanded enough attention.

Silverlight seems to have been a success and the Expressions Encoder, which replaced Windows Media Encoder, is a very, very impressive application, although restricted to the VCV1 codec. However, video players developed in Silverlight, such as those from Narrowstep, seems incredibly slow to load and have problems on pre-Intel Macs. Adobe’s Flash technology is proving to be ubiquitous and even powers the video on MSN – an admission of defeat if ever there was one.

Microsoft’s DRM remains the only real option on the market – I’ve yet to see really successful implementation of rival solutions such as WideVine on any scale. This is a real strength that the company does not seem to leverage.

Microsoft IPTV has been less of a success and I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about its implementation including the first customer, Swisscom’s decision to quietly drop the technology.

On the desktop Windows Media Centre Edition was a real let down. It was difficult to develop for and even more difficult for users to set up. Most people who bought computers with this OS just ignored the EPG interface and this has continued with its integration into Vista.

There’s little doubt that Microsoft has figured out that it will not be able to charge top dollar for its products forever in a world where things are increasingly free or advertising driven. This is why they have persevered with the millstone that is MSN and bought Accipiter and their Atlas online ad system.

Now, this is where things begin to unravel. Microsoft is never going to catch up or even compete with Google in this space, even teaming up with Yahoo! would not have brought them the clout they required and would have turned them into something they will never be – a media company.

The reality is, Microsoft are going to become increasingly dependant, as many, many major corporations are, on Google for their future.

Excerpt from:
Microcosm