We’ve been interested in the convergence of media and fixed/mobile telecoms for quite a while and we are of the opinion that we are in the early stages of a consumer media revolution. Here, by media we mean TV and general video content and by consumer we refer to the mass market user. Sure, it is now becoming relatively common for the average user to do a bit of timeshifting, especially in the US where TIVO is fairly popular and in any case, normal broadcast TV is made unwatchable by the insertion of bad adverts every 2 minutes.  And catch-up services like iPlayer in the UK are leading people to think less about “what’s on TV today” and more about “what’s been on TV in the last month” (or week).

The revolution in our terms is really about going all the way and moving from what is effectively real-time consumption of content to the world of watching whatever you want, whenever you want and wherever on whichever device. Within this new domain we will see a move towards:

(a) Substantial consumption of on-demand content, catalysed by catch-up TV services

(b) Mobile devices becoming a coherent component of users’ broader media experience

(c) Content consumption spanning multiple platforms

As it stands today, the revolution is in that phase where it is not clear who is fighting whom. Everyone is just fighting for consumer media mindshare. As consumers we can watch a growing number of channels on digital terrestrial TV, we could pay an unreasonable amount of money to a satellite or cable company to have a couple of hundred additional channels of guff (and some sport as well). We can get some TV on our mobile phones if we buy an additional subscription for that. There is a growing amount of decent, legitimate TV content available online and if we bothered to hunt around we could find most things online for free.

When we go out to buy a new TV we’ll be offered an internet connected TV that allows us to connect to on-demand services that have done a revenue share deal with the TV manufacturer. An ISP sent us a free internet-connected PVR for renewing a broadband subscription and that device connects to the ISP’s video on demand service. Our DVD rental subscription now includes a video download service. The new WiFi hub that we bought acts as a media extender and also connects to some kind of on-demand video service if we have a compatible PVR and the new home PC that we purchased is a media centre.

Basically, it is likely to be messy over the next couple of years as players jockey for position in the hopes of capturing some of the value. Our goal within this blog is to track some of the key trends and, while we will try not to do the hard sell on why Vizimo is so great, we hope you will not mind the occasional mention.