On Monday, Peter Nowak wrote a preview piece about the Consumer Electronics Show, which opens today in Las Vegas.
In the Monday article, Peter observed that last year’s show saw participation by a number of first time exhibitors, including General Motors and content producers NBC Universal and Sony Pictures.
Some of the industry observers questioned why the content companies are there:
They are awkward at this point. They think they need to be there because of multiplatform potential and it’s largely exploratory. But what can you really buy from NBC Universal except movies online?
I wrote yesterday about disintermediation, which helps to understand why content owners, developers and producers might want to establish direct consumer relationships.
Studios going directly with consumers can cut out two layers of intermediaries: broadcasters and broadcast distributors (cablecos, DBS, telcos).
In an ultra high speed world, electronic information distribution looks very different.
The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit will be looking at these kinds of issues (among many more concerns). Our theme this year is Embracing Transformation: Communications industries in flux.