The Allure of New TV

Last week, many of us in the media world were surprised but pleased by the launch of a unique venture—New TV. It is the brainchild of two powerful executives—Meg Whitman, the outgoing chair of Hewlett-Packard and Jeff Katzenberg, a founder of Dreamworks and the former head of Disney’s movie studios. They raised over a billion dollars for the launch and did it very quickly with an amazing array of businesses providing seed money including Disney, NBC Universal, Alibaba, Facebook, Viacom and in the financial world, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

Right now, Ms. Whitman and Mr. Katzenberg are projecting a Christmas, 2019 launch. The service will provide “on the go mobile viewing” with much newly created content being about 12 minutes per episode for New TV series. You may ask why would people want to watch on their phones. Well, currently, the average person spends four hours per day on their mobile device and approximately one hour per day is with video content.

In terms of technology, they are are projecting an improvement in quality and also will be ready when the move to 5G occurs in a couple of years. When I bounced this idea off a number of people in recent days, there was a very sharp demographic divide. My contemporaries seemed to be skeptical of people watching series video on their phones although two mentioned that the new Apple phones will have larger screens. Those whom I canvassed in their 20’s were much more enthusiastic and some liked the idea of briefer episodes.

So, once again, conventional media is threatened. These two executives have a wonderful track record and are unusually well connected in both creative and financial circles. I am VERY curious to learn what they plan to charge for the service. How much will people be willing to fork out for “New TV”? Remember, many of us doubted people who be willing to pay for music but that has been proven to be totally wrong.

What do you think? I would love to hear from you.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com