Declassati i Media tradizionali… la CATV reagisce…

Tempi duri per i ditributori ed i packagers. Il valore è percepito alla fonte. GLi operatori di CATV reagiscono mollando la presa sul cliente ed aprendo alla Consumer Electronics. Conoscendo il “carattere” dei Cableros è una mossa innovativa. Ma non sarà sufficente…

Link: Press Gazette – Traditional media shares downgraded by investment bank.

Investment bank Lehman Brothers has downgraded its share rating on “traditional” TV and newspaper companies, although it posted a postive rating on the industry as a whole.

The bank today downgraded its stance from “hold” to “sell” on ITV, a move it said was due to the “disruption from coming technology changes” traditional media companies are facing.

Link: Cable Digital News – Video – CES: Roberts Declares Open Season – Telecom News Analysis.

The “age of the closed proprietary set-top box is behind us,” Roberts said. He didn’t name names, but U.S. cable’s set tops and conditional access have long been dominated by the Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT – message board)– Scientific Atlanta duopoly. “The era of an open, two-way cable platform is here,” he said, adding later that virtually the entire U.S. cable industry will support tru2way in local systems by the end of 2008.

Some results of the tru2way effort could be seen at the Comcast briefing room at The Venetian’s portion of CES. There, the MSO was showing off a tru2way-based digital box from Panasonic that complies with specs outlined by Comcast’s Residential Network Gateway (RNG) platform.

Starting next year, Comcast also plans to offer a portable DVR/set-top combo under the Panasonic brand and tru2way technology. (See Comcast, Panasonic Unveil Portable DVR .)

Comcast’s tru2way commitment also extends to its partnership with TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO – message board) and an initial deployment in the New England region. (See TiVo Set-Tops Trickle Out .)

Opening the door to both application developers and a wider range of CE companies “is a totally different business model [for the cable industry],” Roberts said, noting that cable’s success with the Docsis standard for cable modems has helped to convince the industry that it needs to open up.