The Disruption of Television is Inevitable, but Will Take Place Over Time
By emeadows
August 30, 2012
August 30, 2012
- Maxwell Wessel discusses the inevitable disruption of television in a guest blog for Harvard Business Review. Wessel is a member of the Forum for Growth and Innovation, a Harvard Business School think tank focused on disruptive innovation.
- “Periodically, technologies or business model innovations allow start-ups to enter industries offering services that are generally cheaper and more accessible, but of far lower quality,” he writes. “However, over time, these start-ups tend to invest in performance improvements in such a way that allows them to displace industry incumbents.”
- Already, for a fraction of the cost of cable, consumers can subscribe to streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus, which may not have all desired content, but are becoming increasingly viewed as “good enough” alternatives.
- And as more people opt into these disruptive services, “the big studios and distribution companies, armed with their outrageous overhead structures, will be unable to compete with small production studios designed to leverage novel distribution channels at much lower cost,” writes Wessel.
- But he also notes that a change in the overall ecosystem will be difficult (though not impossible and still inevitable) because it is currently built around “multi-billion dollar wire infrastructures” and a consumer base in need of high-speed wireless Internet access.
- Change on a massive scale will happen slowly, according to Wessel. “Academics have noted that disruptive cycles take place over periods of 15-30 years. Even if those cycles are faster than ever with the ever-falling costs of distributing information, educating the public about new ideas, and producing innovative products, it will still be a number of years before we see meaningful change.”
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