by Aanarav Sareen on December 19, 2010
If I were to say anything about 2010, it would be this: it has been the best year on record. From flying on a moment’s notice to various parts of the world to jumping out of airplanes, it’s been a blast. In all honesty, 2011 will have to work extra hard to exceed 2010. But, it’s worth it.
2011 also represents a significant career change for me. A month ago, I changed jobs and with that, industries. Today, I work on Madison Avenue with Wunderman to execute some of the most creative digital strategies. As someone who analyzes each point-of-contact — traditional and digital — this is an exciting move.
Also in 2011, I’ll start writing about digital content and travel. As someone who travels primarily for leisure, I’m very disappointed with the offerings in the travel industry. So, we’ll change the market. A lofty goal? Yes. An achievable goal? Yes.
Thank you all for reading and being a part of this digital media sphere. It’s a small industry filled with extremely passionate people.
A very happy holidays to you and yours.
by Aanarav Sareen on October 25, 2010
Over the past 5 years, media has changed at a pace is that is both thrilling and frightening. A few years ago, touch screens were a fantasy. Apple was still a computer company. Google was just a search company. Hulu was just a word that people made fun of.
Today, running a media property is more than content and advertising. Technology is not just a privilege. It is a necessity. However, changing companies the size of broadcast and cable networks is not an easy task. It requires a complete re-haul.
Over the next week, we’ll focus on the four core aspects of running a large scale content business in 2010. These four categories are: content (and cost of acquisition), monetization solutions (advertising and integration), web platforms (user engagement and social media) and technology (television, IPTV and mobile).
by Aanarav Sareen on October 20, 2010
Earlier this year, Cablevision got into a heated and very public dispute with ABC regarding retransmission fees for WABC-7 in the New York area. While the dispute was short lived, it was an indicator of things to come.
This year we’ve seen more public retransmission disputes between content providers and distributors. However, the largest one thus far has to be the dispute between Cablevision and FOX (also in the New York metro area).
Since October 15th, Cablevision subscribers have not had access to certain FOX programming in the midst of the fall TV season as well as highly rated sporting events. While this is expected to continue for some time, the scary part of this dispute is that FOX turned off access to Hulu.com and Fox.com for a little while. It’s clear that content companies are treating web and TV properties as similar entities, since the content is transmitted via the same pipe. Although access to web properties was restored very rapidly, this is not the last time this issue is going to come up.
The way the cable business works today is very complex and the revenue numbers associated with content transmission are significant. While we’re still a little ways off before this becomes a significant issue, it will be interesting to see how cable companies deal with customers that have a data-only connection, but not a content connection (cable TV subscription).
[Image from Consumerist.com]
