This will mean that they cannot imagine life without consumer-electronics devices.
Microsoft is a very good software company. They are not a distribution company or a content-creation company. NBC is better at television.
The problem of piracy of digital screeners has been going on for a while and is a growing trend. Originally, the industry did not take the problem seriously, however.
There are incentives, but in the U.S. -- with 85 percent of people subscribing to paid TV services -- it's hard to see direct over-the-air TV service having much impact in the future.
You still have to have Lifetime, because that viewer base is a lot more established and committed. Dropping an established channel is more of a weakness than not having an emerging channel.
This maps onto Yankee Group research. We, too, have found that men are heavier users of these technologies than women, and better educated people tend to have more consumer-electronic devices than other segments.
At a minimum, you need to have a dataset that is easily comparable with traditional media.
That kind of thing helps tremendously for a young network. It puts it in a much stronger negotiating position.
It underscores how critical it is to have scale in this business.
If you go a la carte, that messes with the math there.
Integration is a formidable challenge. It's not so much a question of any individual player or a particular product; it's just a matter of whether they can dance together.
Installation is potentially a massive sinkhole for all the players in this space,
The media business is increasingly difficult to compete in effectively if you're not a media conglomerate. They've taken it as far as they can and it's time to move on.