With all the hubbub surrounding franchise legislation and infrastructure deployment hold-ups, there's been little space to cover content issues. In a report out of the VON show last week, apparently Microsoft asked its chairman, Bill Gates, what he would want to watch on IPTV. His answer as recalled by Microsoft's director of media services Shari Barnett: "Old Richard Feynman lectures, MIT research on AIDS, and Dora the Explorer" (for his daughter.) "I'll never miss a good golf tournament." The stunt certainly reminds the programmers at Microsoft just how much work they still have to do. Gates' response might as well have been, "everything." IPTV could be pay TV's answer to the Long Tail, but it's going to take a while, so let's focus on the coding, the buildout and the regulatory fights.
For more on Gates' content requests:
- see this article from CRN Australia