A Match Made In Heaven ?

The inevitable news that NTL (or Virgin Media as it's reported to be called now) is following its acquisitions of Virgin Mobile and Telewest with a long hard look at ITV (a disclosure at this stage: both are major customers of my employers Narrowstep).

NTL have always been weak on content - although the acquisition of Telewest and its Flextech subsidiary has changed this of late - so this would, on the surface, seem to make sense.

The world of the future for all of these companies is comprised of a single fibre to the home capable of two or three single HD channels and then a highly flexible, interactive, switched at source environment delivered over IP. It also exists in a world where the ability to market and package will be of the essence - and not the traditional senses of these terms for TV.

TV 2.0 marketing will be viral and search oriented, although traditional marketing clout will help break new programmes, series and channels.

As ever, the success of this merger, if it ever happens, will depend on execution not conception.

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