March 17th, 2004 – Viodi View – Go to Viodi.com and Viodi.tv for current posts

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Quick Jump Menu to this Issue’s ArticlesMarch 17th, 2004 OverviewI Am Like a Bird – A Parrot, That Is (Club Viodi Members)Cable Marketers Strut at CTAM’s Final Digital & Broadband ConferenceSpeaking of Educational Opportunities

THE VIODI VIEW

by Ken Pyle ([email protected]), Viodi, LLC

In this Issue: Kids Rule, Cable Marketers Strut, Full Plate…….

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March 17th, 2004 Issue

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An early spring is in the air in California as the birds are chirping and the roses in my garden are basking in the warm rays of a winter sun. Will this be a temporary phenomenon or something that stays with us from now through summer? If history is a guide, this delightfully warm respite from winter’s harsh temperatures will be followed by cold and rainy April showers. Regardless, this bit of sunshine is an indication of the promise that summer brings.

Similarly, I have been seeing several rays of light to suggest that the economy might finally be on the rebound, at least from a job creation standpoint. For instance, I heard from one friend who said that two different people turned down her company in favor of alternative offers. Another friend actually had a headhunter call him (unfortunately, this has been too rare in the past few years). I have also heard from start-ups that had put their plans on the back-burner and now are moving forward once again.

The other indication that there will be increased capital spending, at least by independent telcos, is the interest in the IP Video Seminar series. By the attendance at these events and the level of participation from the folks at these seminars, it is clear that telcos are getting very serious about competing in a bundled service world. The cool thing about these seminars is that I am learning all kinds of new marketing tactics from the telcos participating in these seminars. To learn what I have been learning, please click here (Club Viodi Members Only).

Speaking of learning from operators, my colleague, Brian Stevenson, was in the City of Angels, schmoozing and listening to the kings of cable marketing at the CTAM (Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing) Digital and Broadband conference. He brings some interesting insight from folks who are on the cutting-edge of marketing new telecom services, like VOD and interactive television services. Click here to learn more.

You Won’t Get the Content, if You Don’t Protect It….

Viodi is often asked to lend our expertise to assist various types of broadband operators in the acquisition of content for various applications. The first thing we insist upon is that they have a solid plan for ensuring that the content owner’s content will be protected. We have a pretty good formula to help an operator put together a reasonable plan that will please content owners, while helping the operator develop some necessary processes for managing the flow of content within their operations.

The real challenge we face is not the creation of a Content Protection plan, but rather convincing an operator that it is necessary. That’s why I am very excited to be a panelist on an upcoming webinar hosted by NTCA and sponsored by Irdeto Access, a leading provider of content protection systems for content distribution systems, worldwide. I get to give my two cents as to why content protection is something that should be planned for from day one, when implementing any sort of broadband video distribution system. To register for this free webinar, please click here.

Speaking of Educational Opportunities…..

The aforementioned webinar is just one of the many educational opportunities that Viodi and its associates will be involved with in the next few weeks. Some of the other conferences include:

ETI and MatrixStream to participate in April 7th and 9th Local Content Workshops in Des Moines and Kansas City, respectively.

Viodi to produce Local Content Workshop in San Diego to coincide with the California Telephone Association’s Focused Technical Symposium.

Video Industry Leaders and Baseball – An interesting line-up at USTA’s IP Video @ Supercomm

Kids Rule…….

One of the things that we discussed in today’s marketing track was the importance of children, when marketing to families. A few hours later, I received an email from Peter Grunwald of Grunwald Associates providing evidence that kids definitely pull the rest of the family along in the adoption interactive services. Some of the interesting statistics that Grunwald found in his surveys are:

Kids are spending as much time using digital media (computers, Internet, videogames) as they are watching TV.

Four out of ten online kids has his/her own website or plans to build one.

More than half of online teens regularly multitask by using the Internet at the same time they’re “watching” TV.

This report from Grunwald is definitely worth taking a closer look at, as it has some interesting insight with regards to how telcos should position their product in order to reach the kids. To find out how to get the rest of Grunwald Associates’ report, please go to http://www.grunwald.com/downloads/

The Korner: Is the Plate Too Full?

So, my wife called me last week when I was somewhere in the Midwest to let me know that the Viacom channels were “blacked out” from our direct broadcasting service. Of course, I chastised her for not reading the last issue of the Viodi View in which I mentioned that the Viacom and Echostar’s stand-off was worth watching. The thing of interest was the anti-trust suit that EchoStar had filed, as this could have implications for independent telephone companies. Now that EchoStar and Viacom have settled, I am not certain what has happened to the anti-trust suit.

But, on the customer service side of things, EchoStar continued to show the way for independent telcos with their customer retention efforts. So, I was watching television the other night and I caught a commercial starring EchoStar Founder, Chairman and CEO, Charlie Ergen. In that commercial and in an open letter to subscribers, he explained that EchoStar will be providing a $1 credit and a free PPV movie coupon in the next bill. EchoStar is doing a good job of proactively turning what was a customer service negative into a positive that buys them valuable customer goodwill.

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In this on-line publication, we share our analysis, opinions and direction on the interactive television news and views that we believe will be of interest and use to our friends associated directly or indirectly with independent telephone companies. For more information on Viodi’s efforts to unite the independent telephone company’s interactive television efforts, please send an email to [email protected].

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