One characteristic that will come from this converged media is content aggregation. The new leaders in this area will be the (portals) that offer products and services that can attract and keep the most eyeballs with this new media.
You are so right JFB. I can't but help to mention a company that stands to be at the forefront of this converged media. The company is called Liberty Digital (TUNE). Its the brainchild of Liberty Media's John Malone. Liberty Digital is an internet venture capital fund and TV/net portal.
Here is some info that I found in the LMG.A report provided to DLJdirect investors on Liberty Digital's future (the ***s are mine, which I inserted to emphasize significant importance):
"Management also announced plans for an e-commerce business that will link viewers of Encore's thematic channels to e-commerce television sites, likely to be incorporated with Liberty Digital's TV Portals, described below."
"Liberty Digital – One of the more intriguing aspects of Liberty Media, and one on which investors have been the most focused during the past few months, is Liberty's investments and plans for the Internet/Interactive space on the television set. Recall that when the AT&T/TCI merger occurred, Dr. John Malone negotiated for Liberty the rights to 6MHz of channel capacity (equal to 12-18 digital channels) on AT&T's cable systems to be used for interactive content on the advanced digital settop box. ***As part of the agreement, Liberty will also be represented on the first interactive screen that a subscriber accesses.*** At its analysts' meeting, Liberty Digital CEO Lee Masters outlined the company's strategy of creating a “TV Portal” of a variety of thematic e-commerce channels including books, music, videos, tickets, auto, travel, health, etc.—each of which will initially seek to join forces with the corresponding leading e-commerce brand, e.g., Amazon as a partner for the books channel. The company hopes to have its first channel online with the delivery of the advanced digital settop boxes later this year. While much attention has been paid to this potentially enormous asset, management emphasized that it is still in the embryonic stage, is fraught with risk and will take time to develop.
We expect Liberty Digital to make additional Internet/Interactive investments to enhance its strategic position likely to be financed through the use of the company's stock as currency. Liberty's track record in this areas has been on par with its non-Internet related investments. The four publicly traded companies in which Liberty invested a total of $33 million (iVilliage, ACTV, Sportsline and priceline.com) now carry a public market value of around $560 million. In the nine companies that are still private (drugstore.com, Lightspan, Academic Systems, iBeam, IPIX, Digital Health Network, KPCB Java Fund, Total Entertainment Network, and HomeGrocer), Liberty has invested a total of $57 million and that investment is probably worth at least $500 million as well.
Liberty Digital announced another transaction in which the company will contribute SonicNet, which consists of several music related web sites, and The Box, a pay-per-view music channel, to MTV Networks Music Online in exchange for a 10% stake in that entity. With these transactions, Liberty has combined its music assets with a much stronger brand, MTV, in exchange for equity and the potential to participate in the upside of this combined entity. The transaction is expected to be completed by late June, and it is speculated that this division will go public at some point after that.
Additionally, to aid an interested person's research, here are some news links that goes into more detail about the TCI Music to Liberty Digital transition:
biz.yahoo.com
news.com
And another article from MSN MoneyCentral that sees TUNE's potential:
moneycentral.msn.com
Sorry to interrupt with my somewhat tangent post. Take care. -Adam |
