Who's Winning the Content Providing War?

So in 2010, what kind of battle can we expect to see over media consumption, content, and entertainment? Until now content suppliers have been fighting over laptop screen real estate, trying to grab your attention as they stream in their beautiful content. That's all set to change in 2010, and there are plenty of players looking to take the battle into the living room.

Unlike laptops, a television is a shared screen experience - much more valuable to advertisers and content producers alike. The internet experience is soon to be exported seamlessly into the living room and that means there's going to be a war over who will supply that content.

Lets look at some of the major players and how they shape up. Firstly, there's Rupert Murdoch and his massive company bSkyb which have a fairly substantial portion of the market. They're the people who introduced Sky+ which allowed us to record content broadcast over their satellite system, quite a novel and useful concept but they now face a serious problem; How are they going to reposition themselves in the era of on-demand content. Satellite streams can't provide on-demand and satellite is a technology Sky built their business around.

Then there's Virgin, a relatively new contender in home entertainment market but they've got a distinct advantage. They're primary technology is broadband internet - and with the fastest speeds in the UK they really are in a strong position. On demand isn't even nearly a problem with bandwidth like that and Virgin customers already enjoy the BBC's iPlayer. Virgin can add Sky+ like functionality if they want to but with on demand viewing technology like iPlayer, what's the point? Ultimately this boils down to the technology driving these two major options, on-demand broadband or over the digital broadcasts over sattellite.

I'm sure you can see there's only one winner in this race, which is exactly why you see Sky desperately trying to reposition themselves as a provider of broadband. Unless they can get their hands on Virgin's super fast cables then they'll always be the slow horse in the race. Is their satellite television package enough to keep consumers coming back to Sky again and again? If there's one major advantage Sky have over their competitors it's their access to the Premier League - a large attraction on their subscription television service. England's recent experiment with an online only broadcast of their qualifier match suggests the football industry might be looking for alternatives to the dwindling megalith of Sky. The Setanta and ESPN saga over who gets the rights to the games Sky don't show is evidence that the foundations of football coverage are under attack. UFC has already paved the way in experimenting with online broadcast of major sporting events and everything went fairly well.

Then of course we're down to hardware - and there is no shortage of new players in the market. Boxee, an open source internet television provider are moving into your living room with dedicated boxee set top box. It's essentially a miniature PC that plays streaming content, downloads movies, downloads music, and streams content from your desktop PC. In short, it does a damn site more than your Sky+ does and it requires no monthly subscription other than your broadband costs. Then of course there is the Apple TV, a whole series of netbooks, hacked Xbox's and Playstation 3's all wanting to claim that living room space. The walls of Sky are being shaken to the ground and if they don't invent something quickly they'll become obsolete. Their business rests on having the rights to the Premier League, but the moment a better offer comes in, Sky are in trouble.

As for your television, that's in great shape. Get yourself a great value TV bracket and you'll be just fine.

Dave Matthews is writing on behalf of Value TV Brackets, a leading LCD TV wall bracket retailer.