Entertainment re-defined

Business Line
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2010/11/18/stories/2010111850100300.htm

Raj Menon

A few weeks ago, Sony Corporation announced that it would no longer be producing the Walkman. All of us know that the Walkman re-defined the world of music. In its 30 years of service, Sony managed to sell 200 million sets and went on to change how we consume music forever by allowing us to carry our music with us.

Most people attribute the death of the Walkman to the iPod, but the Walkman started falling out of favour much earlier — when consumers started consuming music in CDs. Though Sony did introduce the Discman, it was never as successful as the Walkman.

History repeats itself and the same pattern is going to be repeated in the way we watch TV. TV viewing habits are changing. We no longer watch TV together — the father is into news, mother into sitcoms, daughter into music and the son sports. The fight for the remote gets resolved when give-and-take happens or when another TV comes into the house. If you step back and look at the situation, it's not very complicated. We consume canned content — content that has been shot some time ago and is beamed at times that suit the TV stations — what they think is right for the consumer and not what the consumer's own preferences are.. 

That situation will change in due course with the likes of Tata Sky Plus and IPTV services that offer video on demand. All the content that you will consume will be pay per view. The only exception is news and live events such as sports matches. So, communal television viewing is going to die in the near future, except, of course, when you want to call your friends over to watch the big game or catch up on some movie.

Companies all over the world are scrambling to find the Holy Grail — the device that will be the future of entertainment. For a long time, we assumed that mobile phones were the answer. From simple devices that let you make and receive calls, they now function as mini-computers in your pocket. While they solve the problem of connectivity and mobility, consuming entertainment is a chore. Imagine watching a movie on your phone.

TV manufacturers now have sets that are Wifi-enabled and come loaded with Twitter widgets. Sony has tied up with Google to sell Bravia TV sets loaded with the Android operating system, enabling them to run Google TV. It has a scary remote control, though!

Which brings us to Apple. With the iPad, Apple has hit the ball out of the park. The iPad is a magical device — it is what you want it to be. It plays songs and music videos, you can buy or rent your favourite TV shows and movies and if you really want to have fun, it's a great gaming device. You can read newspapers and books and it is also a fantastic Web surfing device. In a nutshell, it is poised to become the physical media player of our lives.

Just what the Walkman did to the world of music, the iPad will do with our entertainment. It's personal and its immersive nature will make it a game-changing device.

So how does it affect the media we consume? In one word — the app store.  It is a genie, which produces whatever you want to consume from over 300,000 applications in the app store.  The iBooks application gives you access to all the classics such as Oliver Twist, The Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre and all of Shakespeare's works free. If you are a bookworm, you can purchase the books on the NYT bestsellers list at the click of a button. Reading an e-book is a pleasure to be experienced using the iBook application.

An avid TV watcher can get his dose of hit TV series Mad Men or buy Sex and the City from the iTunes store. One can also buy a whole host of games from the store. You will no longer be dictated by channels for appointment viewing and you can watch, read or play at your leisure. As Vodafone says, it's more power to you.

Though the iPad has a huge lead over other tablets, in just a year, there will be a torrent of releases from other manufacturers. Intense competition will improve functionality and drive down costs. Think of what happened to mobile phones.   In the next decade, everyone will have a tablet with an always-on broadband connection. This poses serious questions about the existing business models of all entertainment brands. The genie is out of the bottle and they will need to figure out how to deal with it.