2006 will go down in history as a seminal year when the main Hollywood players are finally adopting broadband as a mainstream distribution platform, sometimes simultaneously with DVD. Over the next couple of years we will see more transformations of the existing business models in favour of exploring new media outlets and giving consumers a more direct and personalized video experience. A new broadband distribution window will be created and will become firmly established. We will witness a partial and gradual shift from ‘channelized’ and packaged media to an a la carte consumption, while most of the traditional distribution outlets will manage to survive concurrently for several decades.
The key trends what we will see with this ‘new deal’ are: the disruption of the traditional distribution windows in favour of broadband, the move to partial unbundling of video services and the rise of advertising as the chief financing vehicle of broadband video.
