Quick Jump Menu to this Month’s Articles Batter-up: Three Telcos Tout Their Triple Play Success: The Telco Jukebox: Something Else to Think About A Day with Dave Now, for a really big show – the Fall, iTVcc Questions, Questions, Questions .
THE VIODI VIEW
In this Issue: Batter Up, Telco Juke Box, Day with Dave, Fall iTVcc, more…August, 2003 Issue
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- Batter-up: Three Telcos Tout Their Triple Play Success
- The Telco Jukebox: Something Else to Think About
- A Day with Dave
- Now, for a really big show – the Fall, iTVcc
- Questions, Questions, Questions .
August Overview
Being that it is August, it seems appropriate that the first thing on my agenda was baseball and triple plays. In this context, baseball meant the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox and triple play referred to USTA’s Triple Play Summit sponsored by Sprint North Supply in Overland Park, Kansas. USTA put on a tightly focused two day seminar that included speakers from Horizon Chillicothe, SureWest and All West Communications; all operators which have successfully deployed triple play service offerings via various access methods.
From Kansas, I traveled to Southern California where I had the chance to meet with one of my son’s heroes, Dave Hood. Some might even say he is one of my heroes as I get pretty excited talking about what this guy has accomplished. So, who is this guy? Dave Hood is the Dave behind the successful kid’s video series, “There goes a bulldozer”, “There goes a police car” and about 23 other “There goes a….” kids videos. My three hours with Dave provided some interesting insight into the viewpoint of a truly independent producer. Further, down the road, Dave and folks like him could present some interesting opportunities for independent telephone companies. Click here to learn more…
I also had the chance to meet with a bunch of telcos in several different cities. As usual, the best insight comes from the telcos, whether they are planning on adding video or whether they are experienced at offering video services. Some of the highlights and details of that trip will be included in a password protected area to be launched in September.
But hearing the concerns of the telcos made me think of how easy it is to miss something when deploying video services. ASCAP is one of those things that most people would overlook. Probably most of us would think of ASCAP as the people we pay for the privilege of being able to play “on-hold” music. ASCAP is much more than that, as is seen in this article which serves as a primer for the presentation that Laurie Hughes will give at the Independent Telco Video Content Conference [iTVcc] that is being held in conjunction with USTA’s Telecom ’03.
Speaking of which, the agenda for that conference is pretty well set and I am excited about the iTVcc, October 14th and 15th in Las Vegas. The agenda was determined based on feedback received from telcos and there will be something useful for everyone involved in any aspect of marketing, acquiring and determining the technical requirements involved with content. Speakers include Andrew Mellet from Warner Brothers, Tony DiStefano from All West Communications and Bruce Eisen from CinemaNow. Click here to get the scoop on this event.
Telcos helped shape the agenda. Now we are looking for any questions for the speakers of this event to help them address the telco concerns. Click here for more information.
Finally, I am sure most everyone saw the news release from BellSouth and Hughes (i.e. DirecTV) announcing that Bell South will begin bundling DirectTV’s service as part of a full-service offering. Normally, I tend to downplay these sorts of announcements as hype intended to satisfy the Wall Street’s expectations. This release, however, has a couple of interesting aspects. First, the agreement between Bell South and DirecTV gives Bell South a great deal of flexibility in how they price and package the DirecTV service.
It was also indicated that this is a long-term deal, not just a marketing deal to solve short-term competitive issues. The following statement from Bell South’s press release, “BellSouth and DIRECTV plan to immediately begin exploring joint development activities focused on, among other things, the integration of digital satellite and terrestrial broadband services”, indicates that they may be forging ahead with a truly unique approach for providing bundled services.
The implication is that they will work together to do things like use satellite for broadcast signals and DSL for local and on-demand content. Technology is probably the least of the issues in making that scenario play out. From the tone of this press release it sounds like BellSouth has the vision to get around the political, regulatory and marketing obstacles that could hold back such a development. This will definitely be worth watching closely.
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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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