Broadband Video Opportunities And Challenges

Broadband Video is here large and small production companies have awakened to the opportunities and challenges that broadband video presents. As a result, the market is characterized by rampant experimentation, with free content being posted on such places as YouTube. As more and more people switch to Broadband to benefit from its streaming capabilities so the opportunity grows to use broadband video.

The birth of truly on demand media is here. Large media outlets are frightened as small independent production companies release their own channels online. Channels range from cooking, current affairs to sports. To be successfully positioned for the future, the key challenge is understanding how to embrace new broadband-enabled models while preserving and extending the value of current assets and existing business models. With terrestrial and cable channels in the UK looking at how they can exploit broadband they are finding it difficult to come up with a model that will not damage there bread and butter business. The power of the broadband medium is in finding new ways to present content and to offer interactive capabilities to audiences that have never been possible before. The companies that "crack the code" on these new models will be the eventual winners in a broadband-dominated world. Crack the code means how do they make this commercially viable. Small independents are playing around with broadband in an attempt to see what consumers are willing to put up with, from forcing the viewer to watch an advert before they view the real program, others have advertising on their web pages, charging a subscription, charge per download where others simply just seem to be providing it as free content to attract people to their sites to buy their products.

It will only be through the steady process of experimentation, research and iteration, that will allow content makers to better understand what consumers want and what business models work.