What does a netflix hike have to do with audio visual for meetings and events?
If you haven’t heard by now, Netflix will be charging and selling independently their disc and streaming service as of September 1st, 2011.
What exactly does this mean for the audio visual meetings and events industry? In a word: Delay. I’ll explain more after we talk about a few things.
Lets first talk about discs. The division of disc subscribers and streaming subscribers slows down the phase out of disc technology. I’ve long felt discs days were numbered. But why has the music industry and consumers adapted to digital devices for their music but not for their video? In a word: Support. The general consumer has not been provided with devices that accepted on a mass scale, nor has the consumer been provided with a distribution system for this media. Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu(as well as cable companies) all smell the future of media but are currently failing to convert and distribute. So how did we rid the world of Compact Discs for music? The ipod and pirating. The ipod was the hardware and pirating provided the incentive to switch formatting. I’m not advocating pirating, but it paved the way for Amazon and itunes for a very lucrative mp3 distribution business.
So what is holding back the movie industry from allowing a company like Netflix from distributing all the movies streaming? In a word: Contracts. Contracts with companies like HBO and cable companies like Comcast. Can you imagine what immediate distribution would do to premium movie channels? Devastation. It would require a massive overhaul of the entire movie entertainment distribution and without a major push from customers, it isn’t going to happen.
So why a delay to the meetings and events industry? Audio visual advancements in the meetings and events industry are heavily based on the adaption and adoption of technology on a mass consumer scale. Example: HD projectors were not popular until the general public adopted the idea that HD was superior. The allowance of the general public to resist the change to digital based distribution slows video distribution technology as a whole, including infrastructure and hardware.
But not all is lost, the netflix hike allows other major players to come in and steal major market share due to customer dissatisfaction. You know, like what happened to Blockbuster.
