Digitisation is fundamentally changing the media industry – a reality Global Corporate Venturing previously covered in the May 2018 edition of its GCV Magazine. Consumption preferences have shifted already, with digital subscriptions and on-demand programming eating into the market for printed newspapers, broadcast TV and radio.
Content delivery models have also morphed, moving from a linear relationship between the consumer and a platform which transmits media to an over-the-top (OTT) model in which customers themselves select what media they wish to consume.
Scott Caruso, director of strategic ventures at cable entrepreneurship forum UpRamp, part of R&D initiative CableLabs, believes this year will see the OTT model grow even more prevalent, with both IP video and livestreaming generating interest for his members.
He said: “You hear about cable cutters [customers who find they no longer require cable subscriptions] and I think it is a big opportunity for the broadband companies – to transition their consumer as they switch their consumption from a video-based service to data or digital-based services.
“Some of this is already happening but I think over the next year, that is going to be a big change.”
And the changes will keep coming.
With 4K broadcasting, media providers expect audiences to soon be watching videos that are four times the pixel resolution of standard high-definition output. The adoption of virtual reality (VR) technologies could fundamentally transform how we engage with communication, films and computer games.
Caruso argued a significant draw for cable and broadband VC activity lay in technologies that reduce latency, the delay which occurs when transferring data via the internet or local area networks. He said: “Any company that is developing a product that leverages high bandwidth and low latency in a symmetrical form is key.
“You can think of a holodeck [a holographic or computer-simulated physical environment] – it is perhaps the ultimate example. To pull that off, you are going to need an infrastructure that fulfils the role broadband did in the past.
“I fundamentally believe you will see metrics where latency becomes a key component of the service you buy or utilise for a given transaction. Latency will be one of those things – I need sub-second or sub-millisecond latency as a guarantee.
“Say there is a medical diagnostic and I am talking to the doctors in the US and you are in India. That kind of engagement, particularly in real time in an overseas operation, means you cannot afford any kind of latency, you cannot afford a hiccup. That sort of stuff is going to happen but not unless someone is really building the infrastructures.”
Caruso added there was also a need for capacity to support our ability to broadcast through platforms such as social media and livestreaming, and at higher resolutions such as 4K. The cable broadband industry is already moving ahead on this, developing telecoms standards that provide faster upload speeds than those used today.
“The infrastructure is moving from predominately a distribution system to much more of a flat model where you can broadcast anywhere and consume anywhere. If you think about that, that means you must have just as big a pipe going up as you have going down.
“That kind of symmetrical change in the infrastructure, we are already somewhat seeing with [the new cable specification]. It is 10 gigabytes each way, up and down. You can imagine how that disrupts the media industry, I can broadcast in higher quality from anywhere.”
“The pipes were not designed for 4K. So advances are going to be driven more by the infrastructure than the production, because it is not the production of 4K video that is difficult, it is the distribution.”