The Revolution of the PAF

The rumor of an Apple TV as, half confirmed by Steve Jobs himself, is constantly talking to her. The planets will align them-for a new warning shot in the style of Cupertino?

An impregnable fortress

So far television as such was under the rule of cable operators: real gatekeepers of access to content, they do not intend to let disintermediation easily, and Apple has been busy for the Apple TV pay to be enthroned on the side of free set-top boxes and delivered by cable operators, which has earned its status as "hobby".

D8 at the conference of 2010, Steve Jobs made the diagnosis: "The problem of innovation in the television market is the strategy of placing on the market. Basically, the TV industry has a subsidized business model, which gives everyone a free decoder, or $ 10 per month, and in fact it destroys any possibility for innovation, because nobody wants to buy a set-top box ... Ask TiVo, ReplayTV ask to Rokku at Voodoo, to us, to Google in a few months ... Sony and Panasonic have also tried, among many others, all have failed. All you can do is add a box to your TV system. You can say "My TV has all the HDMI ports, one for the decoder, I can just add a small box more." You end up with a table covered in remote controls, a pile of boxes, different interfaces, and this is the situation where we are today. The only way to change that is being able to go back to square one, dismantle the decoder design it from scratch, with a consistent interface, through all these different functions, and offer consumers a way to which they will be willing to pay. And now there is no way to do this. So this is the problem of the TV market. "

Apple Could replicate what she did with the iPhone by signing agreements with cable operators? Jobs responds with an elegant pirouette that no cable operator national and international regulations that make it an extremely balkanized. In market reality, cable operators are of a rather dim view of Apple comes encroaching on their turf, and have probably no intention of letting the wolf into the sheepfold. If proof were needed to be convinced, the only acquisition of NBC by Comcast has somewhat challenged agreements between the chain and Apple.

Changes in the chain of human

In fact, with the sale of programs and series on the iTunes Store, Apple has already shaken the established order. The chain of title has undergone few changes since the iTunes Store using only the direct debit bank cards: licensing agreements, usually territorial, however, allow the sale abroad of a work reserved for the French market, never seen in the area. Moreover, while Apple treated initially with the local distributor of a work for its sale on the iTunes Store matching, it has meant since signing with the original producers to conduct itself in the distribution abroad.

The thing was much easier to implement than the U.S. series are funded by the minority in American networks, the sale of foreign rights and the video market from end to maximize their production. This business model gives producers more flexibility in marketing their works. the TV stations themselves have taken the measure of the contributions of the Internet by multiplying remedial services, which can often retain a public rather than away from the television set. Better yet, with the net in support of the broadcast, viewers have less to fear from an abrupt interruption of the broadcast of a series due to poor audience figures since the end of their series will be posted on the site of the chain. And conversely, when producers want to promote a range in difficulty, they can circulate on the Internet to attract a wider audience (as was the case recently for the Pan Am series, whose season has been a freely distributed on the U.S. iTunes Store). However, these services are not always presented in the most intuitive.

Naturally, all these new operations should result in license agreements that did not exist before, however, these changes allow others to see emerge. The battle over broadcasting rights to sporting events has become internationalized (Al Jazeerah has won one of the lots in the Champions League in his face and beard of Canal Plus), and the BBC iPlayer outside opened its borders the UK. New services like Hulu and Netflix offer video consultation at will, and France CanalPlay Infinity offers unlimited service for a monthly subscription of 10 euros.

But apart from the subscription, it remains to find profitable business models: no broadcast service online content has so far found only by the profitability of financial advertising. What's more, if the Internet can be considered for the world, besides the problem of the territorial distribution rights, we need to present advertisements that target audiences in each country. Catch-up TV makes sense for the channels in a comprehensive manner taking into account their main activity.

New tools are changing the media landscape

In France, the broadcast networks have proved particularly costly for television, including the lack of competition: one with TDF for the radio, Canal Satellite for satellite, cable and numeric for, difficult to negotiate better tariff offer. With the development of triple play as the market experienced a boom first, allowing the creation of channels for which funding would have been unthinkable once, followed by the arrival of DTT.

Specifically, the development of broadband enables the delivery of live channels at a cost much lower: the Internet enables streaming video in the world without the distance increases costs. Unthinkable with the networks history. But it was with iOS and development by Apple's HTTP Live Streaming, the TV had a whole new distribution channel found.

Indeed, part of increasingly important channel offers programs on iOS, live as remedial, whether free or by subscription. In short this is a perfect way to break free from cable operators and circumvent their gauntlet.