IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

Who will produce the first show syndicated for distribution over the Internet as IPTV? This could be done today, and as I ask the question, I'll bet it already has an answer, so I'll ask a followup. Who will be the first to produce one that registers on the Nielson scale? In the interim, is there a play for amateur productions? Will neighborhood theaters start to work in video studios and put their work out for video podcasting or YouTube? A huge volume of interesting work could find its way to the public right now in this way. Downloadable content is key, too. Imagine if Netflix allowed you to download your movies. You wouldn't need instant downloading to make it worth your while. I'm not talking about streaming. Most music is not delivered in real time, either. I download songs to listen later. I would think a cable company could download on demand content to your DVR. Even a small selection of 1000 titles or so, delivered compressed and during off hours through your cable box to your DVR, would be a nice start. It wouldn't really be IPTV, I guess, but the same principle applies. Your DVR can now be your Media Center PC, and the file transfer could be made via your cable modem instead of your cable set top box. The library of video commercially available through that channel is small, though. There is a classic confrontation of rights management here. Cable companies believe what they are already paying should include on demand distribution, but content owners disagree. It's very much like music. When the rights are figured out, the content will explode. Until then, it will be viral, amateur, and underground or ignored illegal copies. The future is undoubtedly mass media. "Lost" on IPTV will trump any viral video, whenever it comes. The look of mass media is changing, though. Some have already given up their cable to rent tv shows from Netflix. I spend more money on my pay per view DirecTV movies than on Blockbuster, and I do so in part because they go straight to my DVR and I can keep them as long as I want to use up the hard drive space. The television viewing audience has long been fractured, with only events like the Super Bowl drawing the huge audiences TV shows used to bring in. We watch more TV than ever, yet fewer watch any one thing than ever. It's coming. Who knows quite what it will look like, but IPTV is coming, slowly but surely.