Business Week’s upcoming cover story focuses on MTV Networks Chairman and CEO Judy McGrath. It’s a lengthy, glowing piece that offers nothing but admiration for McGrath (is it just me or is Business Week giving a lot more ink these days to female executives?).
But the most interesting nuggets in the article focus on MTV’s growth strategy, which is centered on moving content to multiple platforms. McGrath has put into place what she calls the “digital Marshall Plan.”
So McGrath has declared “a digital Marshall Plan.” It signals the end of the one-screen company. The troops must now deliver services across new broadband channels, over cell phones, and via video games. Because MTV is so tapped into its consumers — “we’re more inside the heads of our audience than anybody else” — advertisers will stay with MTV, she insists.
McGrath’s right-hand man and company President, former McKinsey consultant Michael Wolf, is charged with the task of making money in this new digital world.
Wolf’s biggest brief is to capture new digital dollars. Current online revenue is about $150 million, projected to grow to $500 million in three years. “Listen, the world has come to us,” says Wolf. “The Internet is no longer about text. It’s about video. We produce and own more video than anybody.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:39 AM | Print | Comments (0)
In light of Internet2’s recommendation of 100 Mbps broadband service as a regulation-free solution to the net neutrality debate, this interesting item came over the transom this morning: UK cable operator NTL is about to begin field trials of 100 Mbps high-speed service over cable modems.
Using technology provided by U.S. tech supplier Arris Interactive, NTL just completed a successful lab trial of the super-pumped service and plans to kick off field trials in March. Although cable operators sometimes contend they don’t know what consumers would do with that much bandwidth, Arris and NTL offered some examples in the press release.
These services include the ultra fast downloads of large media files; security services including closed circuit television; inexpensive video conferencing; internet-based gaming; and the multicast streaming of multiple high definition television channels.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:06 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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