CNNMoney has a good overview piece on the direction of the content industry, arguing that the media industry is moving towards people buying content to view it on all their devices. This is being driven by a number of factors, and the general argument goes that place-shifting and time-shifting technology is letting people view their content when and where they want, so the telcos are beginning to demand cross-platform rights from the content providers. The quad-play services being offered are currently being promoted by offering a single bill, but “Tomorrow, it will be about offering access to entertainment content across these various platforms for one price”. It’s a convincing argument, and there is some evidence of telcos already moving this way: “The top executives in charge of striking content deals at such carriers as AT&T (formerly Cingular) and Verizon are now responsible for driving the content strategies across their organization’s other channels—including Internet and digital TV.”

This is good news for consumers, who are likely tired of paying to access content from a particular provider on their TVs, again on their PCs and then again on their phones. The upside is that the consumers can pay once and get content specific for each media whereas with place-shifting technology the content is repurposed. Of course, the downside is that the deals will only work across a single provider, so consumers will have to have all their services with that provider to get the benefit. Which is exactly what the telcos want…