We're in the end game of the Great Unbundling. News stories have become unbundled from newspapers, songs from CDs and books from paper.
But video, today, remains mostly bound to its
cable, broadcast and satellite transports. Most households in the US today subscribe to a multichannel offering that delivers the transport, and the channel bundle (mostly unwatched) as part of a
monolithic service. But that's all going to change.
Within the next five years, most of the video we consume will be delivered over an open IP network, not via proprietary cable,
satellite or even broadcast streams. But even though our favorite shows will be delivered mostly on-demand, we'll still have bundles of services to reckon with - it'll just be arbitraged in
new ways.
Five super premium video-channel bundles will emerge, offering a broad set of networks and shows that appeal to guys, gals and kids. These come from the usual suspects: Viacom,
Time Warner, ABC/Disney, NBC/Comcast and Fox. As TV Everywhere matures, these five companies will begin to build direct billing relationships with consumers, and will deliver a mostly on-demand
service over traditional broadband networks - with live sports, news and other events serving as anchors.
Next we'll have a handful of premium independent channels that offer super-high
quality programming on demand. Netflix is clearly one of these, HBO is well positioned to be the second. What about Blockbuster, Hulu, Amazon, Showtime and EPIX? I don't see any of these today
building franchises like Netflix and HBO, but it's early and the market's wide open.
Finally, we'll see a handful of premium independent bundles that pull together more targeted
programming for specific demographic.
But what about YouTube? Google's video arm clearly wants to be a premium video-channel bundle that sits alongside Viacom, ABC and the others. They
want to be the Mall of America for video, with folks like us and the other independents as anchor tenants.
In the end it's all about shelf space. All of us are racing to build a
session-shifting experience that lives as an icon across everything from the smallest smart-phone to the biggest smart TV. Because in the next five years if it's a glowing rectangle, then it is a
video consumption device - or what we used to call a TV.
Jim Louderback is CEO of Revision3