Content Industry Up For Grabs

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February 01, 2000 (3:44 PM EST)

By Mo Krochmal,

NEW YORK -- Information, articles, movies, video tape, and many other types of content are getting ready to change drastically -- as they go digital, speakers said at a conference here Tuesday.

The online digital world will transform a diverse set of businesses, such as movies, television, and magazines, claims Robert Pepper, chief office of plans and policy of the Federal Communications Commission. Pepper spoke in a keynote at the Myers Forum for Interactive Television Development, a conference held here.

The content industry, which he estimates at $250 billion in revenue a year, is "up for grabs as the world goes digital online," he said.

The television industry may not be ready because it has no way to deal with content ownership. He said radio has created a model for paying for content that has fueled an explosion of thousands of radio stations on the Internet. The television industry can't match that.

"Radio controls the content and pays a licensing fee when it's music," he said. "Television has no clearing house. The studios own content and things are a lot more complicated."

Companies are going to have to find a way to deliver content to customers anywhere, said the chief of a top interactive advertising company.

Consumers will dial out for content, picking from mobile connective devices, the telephone, the web, interactive television, paper, or live, said Chan Suh, chairman of Agency.com, a New York-based interactive advertising agency.

"People are going to choose what they want from the interactive pie," he said. "Companies are going to have to reach people in several different media at once."

Winners include America Online with its merger with Time Warner. Disney, which owns the Go network online and ABC network, is thus far a loser -- but is not using its properties to build an all-encompassing method for reaching consumers wherever they may want to get their information.